
Glass ^n*^^ 
Book fh^ 

P«ESENTED Wr 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 



A MEMOIR OF THE LIFE OF 

JOHN CODMAN ROPES, LL.D. 

WITH THE PROCEEDINGS OF 

VARIOUS SOCIETIES 

ADDRESSES, PAPERS, AND RESOLUTIONS 

IN COMMEMORATION 

OF HIM 



I 



BOSTON: PRIVATELY PRINTED 
MDCCCCI 



p 



UyvUXi.««-''vw I^owXjO J^vCXv^>k. 



CONTENTS 

JOHN CODMAN ROPES, LUD., A MKMOIR BY HIS FRIEND 
AND CLASSMATE JOSEPH MAY 1 

ADDRESSES DELIVERED BEFORE THE MASSAfHnSETTS HIS 
TORICAL SOCIETY IN COMMEMORATION OF JOHN COD- 
MAN ROPES, NOVEMBER !), 189!) ;«) 

Address by Charles Francis Adarns. 

Address by Solomon Lincoln. 

Address by John C. Gray. 

Address by George B. Chase. 

ADDRESS BEFORE THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF ARTS AND 
SCIENCES BY JOHN PTSKE 65 



A MEMORIAL SKETCH BY A. J. C. SOWDON 



OF 



lA- 



^iTH THE Compliments of William Ropes Trask 



8;? 
87 



OF 

!)7 

OF 

-E- 

lo;) 

HE 
107 

111 



Eins 



CONTENTS 

JOHN CODMAN ROPES, LL.D., A MEMOIR BY HIS FRIEND 
AND CLASSMATE JOSEPH MAY 1 

ADDRESSES DELIVERED BEFORE THE MASSA( Hl'SETTS HIS- 
TORICAL SOCIETY IN t:()MMEMt)RATION OF JOHN COD- 
MAN ROPES, NOVEMBER !), 189!» 39 
Address by Charles Francis Adams. 
Address hjj Solomon Lincoln. 
Address bij John C. Gray. 
Address by Georg-e B. Cha.^e. 

ADDRESS BEFORE THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF ARTS AND 
SCIENCES BY JOHN FISKE 65 

A MEMORIAL SKETCH BY A. J. C. SOWDON 7o 

RESOLUTIONS OF THE BAR ASSOCIATION OF THE CITY OF 
BOSTON 8.! 

Address by J. Lexois Stackpole 87 

RESOLUTIONS OF THE TWENTIETH REGIMENT ASSOCIA- 
TION a:! 

RESOLUTIONS OF THE MILITARY HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF 
MASSACHUSEITS 97 

RESOLUTIONS OF THE COMMANDERY OF THE STATE OF 
MASSACHUSErrS, MILITARY ORDER OF THE LOYAL LE- 
GION OF THE UNITED STATES lo;! 

RESOLUTIONS OF THE VESTRY OF TRINITY CHURCH IN THE 
CITY OF BOSTON 107 

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF \V'RITINGS OF JOHN CODMAN ROPES 111 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES, LL.D. 

A MEMOIR 

BY HIS FRIEND AND CLASSMATE 

JOSEPH MAY 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES, LL.D. 

A MEMOIR BY JOSEPH MAY 

JOHN CoDMAN Ropes was the son of William 
Ropes, who during a long business career did honor 
to the title "merchant of Boston." 

William Ropes was a native of Salem, where his an- 
cestors had been mercliants for several generations. As 
was the custoin of the times, he went in his youth as 
supercargo on repeated voyages to India, China, and else- 
where, gaining a knowledge of commerce, of seamanship, 
and of foreign countries, and becoming at length the 
owner of vessels and head of a commercial house. 

About the year 1830, when fully in middle life, and 
it would appear in consequence of some partial business 
reverses, INIr. Ropes emigrated to Russia, wliere he re- 
mained about seven years, establishing in St. Petersburg 
a mercantile house which still exists. 

Before his departure from home, Mr. Ropes had 
united himself, in a second marriage, with JNIary Anne, 
daughter of Hon. Jolm Codman, an eminent merchant 
and citizen of Boston, residing at the head of Hanover 
Street." 

Mrs. Ropes, with several step-children, accompanied 
her husband to Russia, and in St. Petersburg, on April 
28, 1836, her first son was born, the subject of this sketch. 
A year later the family removed to London, where Mr. 

■ Mr. Ropes received the degree of Doctor of Laws in 1897. 
^ Mr. Codman s secotid son and namesake, older half-brother of Mrs. 
Hopes, was the .lomewhat celebrated minister oj Dorchester, prominent in 
the thcolos^ical controversies of the times. 

[1 ] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

Ropes established a branch house; and in 1842, he re- 
turned to Boston, pursuing there a highly successful 
business career until he died in 1869, at the age of eighty- 
five. 

Wilham Ropes was a merchant of the old school ; a 
man of great sagacity and resolution ; of rigid and trans- 
parent integrity; of simple, unaffected piety; of a most 
cheerful and affectionate disposition; abounding in hos- 
pitality, charity, and public spirit. He retained to the 
last the vigorous health which his early life of activity 
and exposure had fortified, and with his short but erect 
figure, his abundant, fine, silvery hair, florid countenance, 
bright, ready smile, and brisk and cordial manners, was 
the very type of a hale old gentleman. 

Mrs. Ropes possessed the highest native refinement, 
and had enjoyed in a luxurious home exceptional oppor- 
tunities of culture. She maintained through life an eager 
appetite for general knowledge and curiosity on the great 
doctrinal themes hotly debated in her day. She was by 
nature fastidious and shy, but dignified and cordial, even 
merry; of warm and steady affections and quick sensi- 
bihty. Her intellect was vigorous, and very independent 
in its workings. She mastered the subjects with which 
she grappled, and her conclusions, by whatever process 
reached, were her own. Her husband's robust nature re- 
appeared in the moral and mental vigor and alertness 
which were so characteristic of his children ; to their 
mother they owed an underlying fineness of intellect and 
their love of literature and the arts; to both, and to care- 
ful systematic education, their religious thoughtfulness, 
their high principles, and their active interest in moral 
and social questions. 

Of the children of William Ropes's second marriage 

[ 2] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

there were five: Catherine Codman, born in St. Peters- 
burg, and dying there as a httle child; John Codman; 
Francis Codman, born October 7, 1837, and Henry, born 
May 16, 1839, both hi Ishngton, near London; Mary 
Aime, born July 14, 1842, in Roxbury, Massachusetts. 
Francis, a graduate of the class of 1857, and a physi- 
cian and surgeon of distinguished capacity ajid promise, 
died at the early age of thirty -two; Henry, of the class of 
1862, gave up his life upon the field of Gettysburg. 

The home in which these children were reared was 
one of the truest, noblest, and happiest; abundant with- 
out luxury, every genuine need of physical and mental 
culture was supphed in it, but the sources of robust 
character were not sapped. Religion was its characteris- 
tic pervading influence, but with little of austerity. Some 
forms of amusement were tabooed by orthodox disci- 
pline, but these were not many and the best were left. 
The parents of Mrs. Ropes were members of Federal 
Street Church, and intimate friends of Rev. Dr. Chan- 
ning. But something had proved wanting for the daughter 
in the religious culture she had received, and the private, 
even secret, perusal of Calvinistic literature, discovered 
in her father's Hbrary, had confirmed her mind in a dis- 
position to the orthodox forms of thought. It was a 
source of satisfaction to her, in uniting herself in mar- 
riage with Mr. Ropes, that he had adhered to the con- 
servative wing of the Congregational body. She entered 
into that communion, in which her husband had long 
been eminent for zeal and activity, and they remained 
associated with it until, about 1860, they united with 
the Episcopal church. 

But natural largeness of mind, and the very genuine- 
ness of their rehgious sentiments, defended them fi-om all 

[•3] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

bigotry. Deeply earnest in their feelings, they were in- 
stinctively liberal towards those whose convictions dif- 
fered from their own. For the hnsband the subtleties of 
theology had indeed but little attraction. A few cardinal 
principles composed his simple creed, defended his moral 
life, and made his artless devotional exercises in his home 
peculiarly affecting. JNIrs. Ropes entered more deeply into 
the intricacies of the orthodox theology, and accepted the 
system with a consistency which at times made the bur- 
den heavy for her heart. But she was as candid as she was 
earnest. For her, and for her husband, religion was a prac- 
tical interest of life, too real to be given over to formality 
and too natural for conventionality or asceticism. Its sin- 
cerity and simplicity in themselves, the manifest happi- 
ness, dignity, and moral security which it fostered in them, 
recommended it to their children and won them perma- 
nently to it. For John Codman Ropes it was, throughout 
life, the supreme subject of concern, with which his mind 
habitually conversed. 

In 1849 William Ropes removed his abode from the 
hired house which he had occupied at 32 Chestnut Street 
to 92 Beacon Street, opposite the Public Garden, a house 
which he had built. Here his home remained until his 
death, a centre of hospitality and cheerful domesticity. 
One or t\vo of his older children were still members of 
his family. There reigned among all the most open con- 
fidence and warmest family affection, reflecting the per- 
fect married union of the parents. The physical vigor 
which all enjoyed; the mental activity and independence 
which peculiarly characterized them; their lively dispo- 
sitions and hearty interest in all forms of culture and in 
the mooted questions of an intense period of our national 
life, made their family intercourse exceptionally enter- 

[4] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

taming and stimulating. The handsome and bountiful 
table, where old-fashioned decorum yielded not a little 
to the irrepressible spirits of vigorous youth, and their 
eager interest in the topics that easily cropped up in such 
a circle for discussion, afforded a beautiful spectacle of 
domestic happiness. Many a guest of varied quality, from 
the captain of one of the father's ships to the divine in 
whose conversation the mother especially found edifica- 
tion, sat there and stimulated by his talk the ready curi- 
osity of the bright and rapidly maturing minds of the 
children. High debate, ready laughter, abounded. It was 
a home full of good cheer, serious purpose, culture, kind- 
ness, mutual affection, charity, true piety. 

The boys and their sister were educated according to 
the best standards of the time, and as they grew, availed 
themselves more diligently and systematically than is 
often the case, of the means of culture offered by libra- 
ries, lyceum lectures, concerts, and the like agencies. John 
Ropes, especially, was addicted to literature from his ear- 
hest days. His mother said he seemed to have been born 
with a book in his hand, and in a very early portrait he 
is so represented. He had a lively disposition; all his life 
he was fond of jollity and song. But he was soberly 
thoughtful always. He took life seriously from the first. 
His mind moved constantly on important themes, prac- 
tical and theoretic. A serious question had a certain in- 
tellectual and even moral sanctity for him. To leave it 
open, if it could be solved, was a sort of offence to right 
which always left his mind restless. Correspondingly, 
when determined, a result was deeply fixed, and it was 
difficult to dislodge or modify it, so thorough was the 
process by which he came to each conclusion. This thor- 
oughness of mind affected his habits of reading in a 

[5] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

marked manner. They were never desultory. "Miscella- 
neous" reading he abhorred. He had a peculiar antipathy 
to encyclopsedias and "works of reference." Except novels, 
of which in later years he read many, purely for mental 
recreation, he paid almost no attention at all to light or 
general literature. As a matter of culture, he was made 
acquainted in youth with the great poets of old, and the 
more popular of later days. But poetry was never an im- 
portant element in his mental life. Wordsworth and Bry- 
ant were the only modern poets in whom he took real 
interest. The essayists he read eclecticaUy, but the older 
with more regard than the later. For Dr. Johnson he had 
almost a personal attachment. He used to say, "What- 
ever any man thinks of Dr. Johnson, every one is glad 
to have him on his side." 

The precise fact was that, for Mr, Ropes, reading was 
in a peculiar manner and very strictly a means, not an 
end. He read on the particular lines in which his thought 
was moving, to gain facts or to clarify ideas. It thus oc- 
curred that, when quite a youth, his reading became some- 
what narrowly specialized. Throughout life, theology and 
history, including biography, covered nearly its whole 
field. 

The same practicality entered into all the action of Mr. 
Ropes's mind and appeared in personal intercourse. He 
loved amusements and the hvely banter of hours of rec- 
reation. But in mere talk for tiilk's sake, in a conversa- 
tion which did not turn on important questions or tend 
to enucleate important truth, he lost interest and became 
silent. All the real action of his muid was practical. 

With his brother, Francis Codman, John was for some 
years a pupil at the Chauncy Hall School, which he 
entered in 1843 under the well-known masters Thayer 

[6] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

and Gushing. Of that school he says:' "Not enforcing a 
disciphne so rigid as that of many of our public schools, 
it for that reason gave more scope to individual en- 
deavor; and though, in attention to the elegancies of 
scholarship (which, by the way, are thrown away on the 
majority of boys), it was surpassed by some of its contem- 
poraries, yet it taught well what it professed to teach, and 
afforded as good opportunities for the acquisition of the 
rudiments of an education, which are all that boys can 
learn, as any school in the city." The parenthetical ob- 
servation of this passage illustrates the practicality of 
mind to which we have referred. But practicality was 
not the only side of it; and as it existed in him it was 
that of the devotee of truth and reality, not of mundane 
affairs. 

On account of a developing trouble of the spine. Ropes 
was withdrawn from school in the autumn of 1850 and 
put under orthopa>dic treatment. A year later he was 
able to resume study, and became the pupil of Mr. Will- 
iam W. Goodwin, then a tutor in college, now the dis- 
tinguished professor of Greek. He took the greatest sat- 
isfaction in the two years spent under Mr. Goodwin's 
tutelage, from which he passed to college in the summer 
of 1853, accompanied by his brother Francis. 

Of his freshman year. Ropes retained no very pleas- 
ant impressions. He and his brother had engaged a room 
remote from the college, and they made few acquaint- 
ances. In the second term John had a somewhat long 
illness. On the whole, it was a dreary time. In sopho- 
more year, having removed nearer the buildings, ac- 
quaintanceship with his class increased, and he "found 

■ /n a fragmentary sketch of his Ife ivritten at twenty-one and revised for 
the Class Book of 1857. 

[ ' ] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

Cambridge life very cheerful and pleasant, as I have 
found it ever since." From this time on, he grew in in- 
fluence and popularity in his class and in college. By 
virtue of his excellent preparation, he early took a good 
rank in the classics and mathematics, but his greater 
interest was (poorly as they were taught) in what were 
summarily called "the English branches," and his range 
of thought and reading was largely outside the narrow 
compass of the regular curriculum. For the majority of 
students, metaphysics, political economy, moral philoso- 
jjhy, logic, and rhetoric, as taught in that day, were a 
jejune and dreary task-work. Professor Bowen was 
doubtless clear and thorough, and occasionally a gleam 
of humor illumined his exercises. But history, owing 
partly to a prolonged hiatus in the professorship, was, 
at least until senior year, little better than a farce. The 
recitation-method and marking-system still in vogue, 
))ut a premiuni on memoritcr performances, and dead- 
ened real interest in all these subjects. Only Dr. W'^alker, 
already President but still taking charge of some courses 
and occasionally appearing in others, brought with him 
a more liberal spirit, and gave life to the usually tire- 
some experiences of the class-rooms. But not even he 
could make freshmen generally interested in Paley's 
Evidences! Ropes was much alone in caring for most 
of these subjects, in some of which home training had 
already led him to take an interest. For a year or two, 
besides his college work, he belonged to a Bible-class 
conducted by the minister of the Congregational church. 
But while he always maintained reasonable diligence in 
required studies, his mind was more and more engaged 
in private reading and thinking. As has been remarked, 
he was far from being an omnivorous reader; but in col- 

[8] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

lege, as throughout hfe, he read much because he read 
reflectively and with an end always in view. He cared 
for books only as the depositories of knowledge and aids 
to thought. He had none of tliat k)ve for the volumes 
themselves which is apt to mark the literary man, and 
never became ambitious to acquire a large and complete 
library. While not appearing to read rapidly, he had a 
singular power of gathering what a book contained — 
for him — and always proved to know more, even of 
general literature, than he had seemed to be acquiring. 
His tenacious memory utilized all that it appropriated. 
It was not merely tenacious, however, but in a singular 
manner selective. He retained only what was valuable 
for his purposes. His mind curiously defended itself 
against the accumulation of miscellaneous impedhnenfa 
of knowledge. Some great departments — as natural sci- 
ence, for example — he left wholly on one side, respect- 
ing them, but never pretending to care for them. 

In the fields where he was at home he fixedly appro- 
priated what he wanted, and the rest appeared wliolly 
to drop out of his mind. In history, where his knowledge 
became so remarkable, it was chiefly confined within 
somewhat narrow limits. Yet he always seemed to have, 
in a latent fund, as much general information as he cared 
to possess, and whatever he had was always perfectly 
clear and accurate, and thorough so far as he had chosen 
to extend it. His grasp of what he had acquired had not 
the quality of memory; it was knowledge. It was im- 
pressed on his mind by a sort of photographic process. 
It never faded and was always instantly at command, 
Uke one's knowledge of the alphabet or multiplication- 
table. This tenacity extended to the smallest details that 
were of importance ; to dates. localities, subordinate per- 

[ 9] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

soiialities; in military matters, to the numbers of troops, 
the identity of officers, the minutiaj of operations. Es- 
pecially pleasing incidents of private experience, or those 
which for any reason had been of real significance, re- 
mained in full vividness and were recalled by date to the 
hour. But a vast mass of recollections to which most 
minds are subject, wholly failed to keep a lodgment in 
his. His capacity for totally forgetting was as remarkable 
as his power of retaining, and was an important condi- 
tion of it. His mind thus visibly economized its forces to 
the greatest advantage. 

Ropes's intellectual ability, the justness of his mind, 
and his cordiality of nature were speedily recognized in 
college, when his class had become acquainted with him. 
The excellence of his themes and forensics (especially the 
latter, in which sound reasoning was the matter of prime 
importance) led to his being elected one of the editors of 
the Harvard Magazine, and he contributed to its pages 
not infrequent sober papers. He took particular interest 
in the intellectual exercises of the college societies, and 
his orderly and persistent habit of mind did much for the 
prosperity and usefulness of each of them. His social in- 
stinct was peculiarly strong, — he was thoro uglily "club- 
bable" — so that of the "Institute," the A A <I>, and the 
Hasty Pudding Club he was a popular and influential 
member. He was chosen into the 4> B K, in regular order, 
in junior year. 

His own general estimate of college life he summed 
up at the time in the biographical fragment already 
alluded to, written on his twenty-first birthday, in his 
second senior term: "Though not without the ordinary 
vexations of life, my college course has, as a whole, been 
very pleasant; and though, of course, its Uterary advan- 

[ 10 ] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

tages have not been inrproved as they might have been, 
yet I am conscious of having used them with consider- 
able profit to myself. But altiiough I have not been an 
imstudious man, by any means, it is my present belief 
that I shall value the impressions of life and character 
received here and the acquaintanceships and friendships 
I have formed, more than all the knowledge or even the 
habits of study imparted by a course of text-books and 
recitations which, however apparently imavoidable, are 
certainly, in most cases, unproductive of either the ex- 
tensive learning or the thorough mental training which 
ought to be acquired in college. " 

Modern methods of study were foreshadowed, in those 
days, in a great restlessness under the compulsory system 
and debate as to its modification. Ropes adds to the 
above: "It will be my aim in the study of the Law, to 
which I have always intended to devote myself, to see 
whether the 'voluntary' system be not more conducive 
to application, with more satisfactory results." 

Graduating from college m 1857, Ropes entered the 
Law School in JNIarch, 18.58, and continued there till 
March 8, 1859, After a six months' visit to Europe, with 
his father, he returned to Boston, and entered the office 
of Messrs. Peleg W. Chandler and George O. Shattuck, 
remaining with those eminent lawyers until the autumn 
of 1860, when he again entered the Law School, and took 
his degree of LL.B. in July, 1861. 

In this year he was awarded the Bowdoin Prize for an 
essay upon "The Limits of Religious Thought," with 
special reference to Mansel's volume so entitled. 

After graduating he returned to the office of Messrs. 
Chandler and Shattuck, and in November, 1861, was 
admitted to the bar. For some time he occupied an of- 

[11 ] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

fice in common with his classmate Mr. Robert M. Morse, 
and in 1865 he became formally associated in practice 
with his friend Mr. John C. Gray. In 1878 Mr. Wm. 
Caleb Loring joined the firm, of which the style became 
Ropes, Gray and Loring, and of which Mr. Ropes re- 
mained the senior partner until his death. 

To his two years in the I^aw School, Ropes always 
reverted with peculiar satisfaction as among the most de- 
lightful and profitable of his life. His mind was now well 
matured; the subjects and mode of study were agreeable 
to him; he had leisure for reflection and reading; and 
especially — what was always indispensable to his happi- 
ness — he was associated with a group of highly congenial 
friends. Among these were several of his college class- 
mates. Of others with whom he was in daily and nightly 
contact and held high converse, it will not be invidious 
to mention particularly Stephen George Perkins, of the 
class of 1856, who gave his life for his country hi 1862 
and'whose influence on Ropes's own strong mind the lat- 
ter always felt to have been exceptionally important to 
him. 

Estimates of Mr. Ropes's qualities as a lawyer have 
been offered to this Society, and more particularly at the 
meetiuff of the Bar Association called to commemorate 
him. Such are not attempted here. His associates at the 
bar unite in giving him a high place among them for the 
clearness and gravity of his opinions, his balanced judg- 
ment and rigid integrity of thought. In the earher years 
of his practice he appeared frequently in court. For a 
time he was Assistant District Attorney of the United 
States under Mr. George S. Hillard. From 1866 to 1870, 
together with Mr. John C. Gray, he edited the Ameri- 
can I-.aw Review. In later years the greatly increased 

[12] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

trust business of the firnr was chiefly in his hands and 
engrossed the larger portion of his time. 

In general, it may be said of Mr. Ropes, that while he 
had a profound interest in the law and enjoyed its prac- 
tice, entering with keen zest into the trial of such cases 
as he took up, yet his profession never monopolized the 
activities of his mind. His other intellectual interests 
kept a full place beside it, or even a superior one. As a 
lawyer he was hardly ambitious, except for thorough- 
ness of fundamental knowledge and the excellence of 
his actual work. He left his profession at his office ; and, 
as time went on, while its own claims became more ex- 
acting, on the otlier hand his practical apphcation to 
other subjects became more engrossing. His profes- 
sional day was long. His evenings and holidays were 
more and more exclusively devoted to historical study 
and the composition of his successive books. 

The outbi-eak of the Civil War began a period which 
was, for Mr. Ropes, not only, in common with all pa- 
triotic men, one of absorbing practical interest, but of 
peculiar personal experience. 

As has been remarked, his reading and thinking had 
been, even from his boyhood, rather closely specialized, 
and particularly in the direction of history and mUitary 
affairs.'. He was thoroughly versed in our national his- 
tory, and deeply interested in the constitutional ques- 
tions which had been long fiercely debated and were in 

' The earlij addiction of his mind to these .sid>jects mm/ possibhj be traced 
to certain particular impressions. He records how deeply lie 7vas affected, 
while still in London and before his fifth i/ear, hi/ "relations of the Chinese 
war, and the dreadful massacre of the English in Afghanlttan." The guns 
^fired in honor of Queen Victoria's marriage, of which it pleased him to re- 
call the echoes, no doubt stimulated his childish imagination, 

f 13 ] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

, 1861 submitted to the arbitrament of physical strife. 
His patriotic ardor was high. He was full of the energy 
and activity, and possessed the force and steadfastness 
and also the courage and resolution of the good soldier. 
In mental and moral respects he was singularly fitted 
for distinction in a military career. Had it been physi- 
cally possible for him, he would have joined the great 
throng of young men like himself who, in the pure 
spirit of duty, poured forth to the defence of the Union. 
He would have carried with him a technical interest in 
military operations with which but few entered upon 
their campaigns. 

But the bodily infirmity which has been alluded to, 
while it had little influence on his career in civil life, 
was an insuperable impediment in the way of military 
service. The disappointment to him, as a patriot and as 
a student of mihtary science, was doubtless more acute 
than any one but himself ever knew. To accept the in- 
evitiible with composure and cheerfulness was peculiarly 
characteristic of him." To his most intimate friends he 
scarcely confided the regret which, had he permitted it, 
would have so deeply affected him. But as a spectator 
of events in which he would willingly have been a par- 
ticipant, Mr. Ropes foUowed the whole course of the 

' In the biographical Jragment Mr. Ropes thus expresses his feelings when 
the nature of his spinal trouble was clearly made knoirn to him. "I thousht 
it rather a dismal sitnution for me, obliged to leave school for an inde/uiite 
time, and deformed into the bargain. But although I .soon gaite up the hope 
of becoming in tiine straight again, I took comfort in the consideration that 
my health — a blessing often denied to persons in my condition — was now 
fairly good, and I gave up desponding o,v useless arid uncalled for." This 
was the .spirit in which he always met the adverse element in experience. The 
deformity, as he calls it, mas a lateral curvature of the spine, having little 
effect upon his figure except to lower his .stature. 

[ 1+ 1 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

war with a minute watchfulness which was almost that 
of a professional observer. Probably no man in the coun- 
try possessed himself more thoroughly of the details of 
the operations of both the armies. He observed the un- 
folding strategy of both with the acumen of the mihtary 
critic and the anxiety of the patriot. His judgment of 
our leaders was perspicacious and strict. AVhen a cele- 
brated general, failing in the vigorous offensive expected 
of him, and having with great but futile exertions trans- 
ferred his army to an ineffective position, announced by 
telegraph "The army is safe," "*SV//t'/" exclaimed Mr. 
Ropes; ''it would be sq/'c on Boston Common !" His 
solicitude and interest led him to make several journeys 
to the seat of war, where he spent some time in camp 
with his friends. Of the Twentieth Massachusetts, to 
which, with many personal friends, his brother Henry 
belonged, Mr. Ropes was almost a member, so close 
were his relations with it. After the war he was chosen 
an associate member of their permanent organization.' 
With other soldiers and officers of distinction his inti- 
macies became numerous, extending, after the war, to 
many distinguished Confederates. The justness of his 
mind, which singularly defended him from prejudice on 
all subjects, made him capable of appreciating the mo- 
tives and sentiments of individuals on the disunion side, 
and of weighing the soldierly merits of their leaders and 
their conduct of their operations with a candor which 
won their high respect. 

But Mr. Ropes's apprehension of the radical impor- 
tance of the questions at issue in the Civil War was 
profound, and he was a vigorous defender of the logic of 

' The memorial of Mr. Ropes adopted by the Twentieth Regiment Associa- 
tion is printed on pages 93-94- 

[ 15 ] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

the Union position, as he was ardent in its practical sup- 
port. "On the adoption of the Constitution, were there 
thirteen nations or one nation?" was a form into which 
he was wont to condense the argument. 

In 1876 his deep scientific interest in the war as a mih- 
tary event, and the sense of the importance of preserv- 
ing its historical details with fulness and accuracy, led 
Mr. Ropes to propose the organization of the Military 
Historical Society of Massachusetts, and to the work of 
this association he gave great attention so long as he 
lived. He was always its leading spirit, and its delight- 
ful meetings were for many seasons held in his house. 
At them he used the advantage of his wide personal 
acquaintance to bring together a great number of dis- 
tinguished officers, whose essays became of the highest 
value as records of fact and criticisms of mihtary opera- 
tions. Not a few officers of the former Confederate army 
accepted the agreeable hospitality of the Society and con- 
tributed papers. From the large amount of material ac- 
cumulated, several volumes have been pubUshed. The 
opening article in the first volume was by Mr. Ropes, 
on "The Peninsular Campaign of General McCleUan in 
1862." Other publications of his relating to the Civil 
War are, "The Army under Pope," in Scribner's series 
on "The Campaigns of the Civil \Var"; an article on 
"The Battle of Gettysburg," in the Atlantic Monthly 
for December, 1886; in the same magazine for April, 
1887, "General McCleUan"; in the Harvard Monthly 
for May, 1887. "A Few Words about Secession"; in 
June. 1891, in Scribner's Magazine. "The War as we 
See it Now"; and in August, 1891, in the same periodi- 
cal, "General Sherman." 

It was natural that a writer so competent and well 

L i« ] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

equipped should be looked to for a history of the great 
war; and in 1891 or 1892 Mr. Ropes was induced to un- 
dertake the task of reviewing its events, chiefly from the 
standpoint of military criticism. The title ' of the work 
on which he thus became engaged, and which occupied 
him during the remainder of his life, was infelicitous, 
since it implied, rather, a descriptive and popular narra- 
tive. The two volumes, which were aU he was permitted 
to complete, and which cover about one half of the pe- 
riod of the war, are a monument to his ability as a stu- 
dent of military affairs, and to the remarkable impar- 
tiality with which his judicial mind was able to treat a 
variety of questions which have involved much dispute 
and personal feeling. 

The same thoroughness of information, acumen in the 
examination of evidence, clearness of historical state- 
ment and ill argument, which give to the fragment of 
Mr. Ropes's great work its distinction, had already been 
exhibited in his Napoleonic writings. It was some years 
before he went to college that his interest in historical 
subjects was particularly determined to the career of 
Bonaparte,^ in regard to which he became one of the 
leading authorities of the world. His successive writings 
on the subject were, "Who Lost Waterloo?" in the 
Atlantic Monthly for June, 1881; in Scribner's INIaga- 
zine, for June and July, 1887, two articles entitled 
"Some Illustrations of Napoleon and his Times"; and 
in the same periodical for March and April, 1888, two 
on "The Campaign of Waterloo." In 188.5 appeared his 
volume on "The First Napoleon"; and in 1892 his elab- 

'"The Stw-i/ uflhe Ciml IVar." 

^ He ascribed the first awahening of this special interest to the reading of 

John S. C. Abbott's "Life of Napoleon" when ahont fifteen years old. 

' ' [ 17 ] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

orate work on "The Campaign of Waterloo," with a 
valuable atlas. 

Mr. Ropes's ardent interest in Napoleon's career has 
sometimes been referred to as partaking of the character 
of hero-worship. This inference is exceedingly far from 
the truth. His admiration for Napoleon was limited very 
strictly to a profoimd appreciation of his vast intellectual 
endowments, and his unparalleled executive ability and 
power over men. He also did full justice to the career 
of Napoleon in its liberalizing influence on the political 
condition of western Europe. 

Rut for the man himself Mr. Ropes had a strong re- 
pugnance and he never gave serious attention to his per- 
sonal history or the questions arising out of it. AVith the 
detiiils of Napoleons life he was, of course, sufficiently 
acquainted; but he always passed them by with that 
power of dismissing unuseful matter from his attention 
for which he was distinguished. He was apt to sum up 
Napoleon's private character in a sentence which inti- 
mated his feeling towards hiin, — "Napoleon was not a 
gentleman." 

Rut the great game of war which Napoleon was capa- 
ble of playing with supreme ability had intense interest 
for Mr. Ropes, and he followed it in the careers of the 
great generals of ancient and modern days with mimite 
attention and thorough intelligence. Undoubtedly, in 
Caesar's or Napoleon's or Wellington's career it also pro- 
foundly stimulated his imagination; yet it was not the 
stir of its events but the logical processes guiding warfare 
which engaged Mr. Ropes's interest. For war, as a moral 
fact, he had a deep philantlu'opic abliorrence, and as a 
means of arbitrament between peoples, even a certain 
contempt. "It is the most clumsy of all instruments, and 

[ 18] 



JOHN CODMAN HOPES 

no man can tell what it will issue in," he used to say. 
The responsibility of initiating warfare he viewed with 
deep moral sei'iousness, and his condemnation of those 
leaders of peoples who have wantonly entered upon it 
could not be exceeded in forcibleness. He never pretended 
to excuse President Cleveland, whose administration he 
had heartily upheld in its general course, for his action 
on the Venezuela question. The horror and wickedness 
of a war between the Ihiited States and England rose 
before a mind profoundly capable of appreciating Avliat 
it would have been in colors so lurid that they never 
faded. "I shall never forgive him, never," he repeatedly 
declared. 

He strongly disapproved oin- entering upon war 
with Spain in 1898, believing that its objects might and 
should have been attained by the diplomatic measures 
in progress when it was hurried on. He regarded it as a 
politician's movement, and considered the humane justi- 
fications pleaded to be unsound and sensational. The ap- 
peals made to the patriotic instincts of om- young men 
at this time, he strongly deprecated as unfounded and 
misleading. Still more heartily he condemned the course 
of our administration in regard to the Philippines; re- 
garding the conquest of those islands as a wanton assault 
upon the rights of a people whose independencewe should 
have respected and maintained. The "imperialistic" pol- 
icy of the administration he regarded as in violation of 
the principles of our Constitution, and dangerously revo- 
lutionary. He declined to attend the dinner given in 
Boston to President McKinley, holding him responsible 
for leading us into what he deemed a false and perilous 
course. 

It must be admitted that in regard to our political 

[ 19] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

condition and prospects Mr. Ropes had become seriously 
discouraged. The persistent and never-lessening corrup- 
tions of our politics, the rise of "bosses," the increasing 
tendency to tlie centralization of power, the usurpations 
of recent administrations, inspired in him grave solici- 
tude as to the permanency of our democratic experiment, 
and even as to the general practicabihty of republican 
institutions under existing moral and social conditions. 
He entertained the doubt whether such institutions, in 
presence of the temptations offered to fraud in their 
conduct, did not exact, normally, from the honest pri- 
vate citizen a greater sacrifice of time and pains than 
the average man could afford to make. 

The other, and by far the deeper, of the subjects which 
engaged the lifelong interest of Mr. Ropes's mind, was 
theology. Fostered by the influences of home, and par- 
ticularly by his mother's absorption in them, religious 
questions early engaged his attention on their intellect- 
ual side, and still more deeply on the spiritual. His re- 
ligious instincts, while sober and practical, were strong 
and fervent. He was naturally devotional, and kept up 
tlie simple practices of childhood and youtli, in this re- 
spect, with sincerity and deep feeling, to his latest years. 
He was, at all periods of his life, a constant student of 
theology, and his mind Avas habituallv conversant with 
its themes. He long meditated a series of essays upon 
some of these, which, had he lived to complete his work 
upon the Civil War, he would probably have comjjosed 
and published. Reared under orthodox doctrinal concep- 
tions, these were the starting-])oint of his thought, and 
he was thoroughly versed in their logical justifications. 
But the spirit of his home and its training had been lib- 
eral, as we have said, and from the outset the posture of 

[ 20 ] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

his mind was one of strict independence. His thought 
steadily, though slowly, developed and progressed. AU 
the elements of the doctrinal system in which he was 
reared underwent the rigid scrutiny of his own reflections, 
and, if retained, became personal convictions. His creed, 
as time went on, became greatly simphfled, relieved of 
abstractions and doctrinal subtleties. Its emphatic note 
was a singularly childlike repose in the goodness and 
providence of God, in whom he rested as a loving Father, 
in whose benevolence and care he unreservedly confided. 
The great advantages and privileges he had personally 
enjoyed were habitually seen as so many indications of 
divine paternal love and watchfuhiess, and equally of 
the obligation imposed on him of just return, in the tenor 
of his life and conduct, for the peculiar blessings bestowed 
upon him. The sense of God's providence was an inces- 
sant practical motive in all that he did, and a perfect sup- 
port in all that he endured of trial and affliction. 

On one of his European journeys he was stricken 
down, quite alone and in a remote city, where at the time 
conveniences for the welfare of the sick foreigner were 
most inadequately provided. When he realized his condi- 
tion, he was at first deeply dismayed. Then, very soon, 
the thought of the unfjiiling goodness of God, his boun- 
tiful Heavenly Father, came to him; he recalled his 
home, his parents, the singular privileges and blessings 
of his lot, and, as he afterward said, his mind became 
and remained entirely at rest as to the situation he was 
in, and unanxious as to its issues. 

The same practical religiousness pervaded all his active 
life, and was deeply involved in that benevolence which 
was his most characteristic trait and constant habit. No 
man ever more fully accepted and prosecuted life as a 

[21 ] 



JOHN CODMAX ROPES 

stewardship. His vigorous judgment was not often ob- 
scured, but it was incessantly tempered by indulgent pity 
for misfortune and synapathy with the manhood which 
underlay the least worthy characters. His heart grew 
constantly more tender, and with increasing means his 
beneficence became more and more extensive and varied. 
Remaining unmarried, he was on principle opposed to 
the accumulation of wealth, and he scattered his income 
almost with lavishness. He was not much attracted to 
public objects, although he gave generously to those 
brought to his attention. His sympathies went out more 
spontaneously to private want and difficulty, and espe- 
cially he loved to help those who were helping themselves, 
— above all, to assist the fortunes of promising young 
men. He gave the time which was so valuable to him, 
his advice and personal care and pains, as unstintedly as 
his wealth. His patience with the perverse and tiresome, 
his tenderness even towards grievous offenders, were ex- 
treme. His sympathy with the most humble persons was 
singularly quick and natural, and free from condescen- 
sion. He appreciated his own station in hfe and valued 
the advantages of the class to which he belonged. He 
was not careless of his rights or of the obhgations of 
others to him, but exacted somewhat strictly whatever 
it was the duty of any one to render him. But where re- 
lations were personal, he easily ignored the distinctions 
of fortune and culture and saw in every man a man. He 
met persons of all classes — strangers, officials, his coun- 
try neighbors, tradesmen, workmen, his own employees 
and domestics — with an ease and frankness very distinct 
from careless familiarity, which were born of his respect 
for the quality of manhood, and which encouraged con- 
fidence and won affection, but invited nothing but re- 

[ 22 ] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

spect for himself. He put every one at his ease, yet in 
tlie most intimate relations maintained a certain reserve. 

This native dignity peculiarly influenced tlie young, 
and made their intercourse with \\m\ highly improv- 
ing. His affection for tlieni was almost intense; they had 
for him a veritable magnetism. Their companionship re- 
freshed him ; lie understood their feelings and the work- 
ings of their minds, and met them upon their own levels 
of thought. He treated them, on the one hand, almost 
as equals ; yet instinctively he imposed on them a respect 
which they were never tempted to violate. In a mixed 
company it was hard for him to confine himself to their 
elders. He was never so happy as when he gathered chil- 
dren about him at his seaside home, or had a group of 
young men at his table, or in his study, in town. Both 
of his houses were well supplied for them with games, 
toys, musical instrinnents, and other means of entertain- 
ment. He loved the gayeties of the young, joined in their 
fun, and interested himself in their serious pursuits. In 
conversation he listened to their opinions Avith a defer- 
ence which was perfectly sincere, which made them value 
their own mental processes, encouraged genuine tliink- 
ing, and brought out manliness and womanhness in them. 
He expressed his own judgments as between man and 
man with unconscious freedom, and so naturally as not 
to overbear or smother theirs. He watched narrowly the 
unfolding characters of those with whom he was par- 
ticularly intimate, losing no opportunity for the sugges- 
tions of moral principle or practical wisdom. 

This gift of camaraderie secured to Mr. Ropes an al- 
most limitless acquaintance among the young. He re- 
membered all their names and the particular associations 
and interests of each. In public places children flocked 

[23] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

about him with artless confidence. They appeared freely 
upon his summer grounds and broad verandahs, sure of a 
welcome and appropriate hospitality. Young men loved 
to pass their vacations with him, equal comrades in his 
out-of-door pleasures, and spending endless evenings in 
good talk. His city home was the headquarters of not a 
few chosen ones, who caine and went as if it were their 
own. They made him their confidant, carryhig to him 
their life-questions, their ambitions, and even their fol- 
lies and errors. How many he assisted with wise advice, 
with considerate suggestion, with frank and even stern 
reproof which they accepted for its manifest spirit of 
affectionate interest in their welfare, with practical fur- 
therance in making their way in life, with loans or gifts 
of money, will never be knoAvn. 

In this capacity to understand and reach the young, 
Mr. Ropes was almost unique, and it furnished him con- 
sciously the outgo for his strong domestic affections 
which his bachelorhood denied him. 

Similar traits gave to Mr. Ropes's society a peculiar 
attractioH for intelligent women. They remarked that he 
never "talked down" to them, but always as to equal 
minds, whose thought he was ready to value, not hesitat- 
ing to pay it the respect of frankly controverting it when 
he differed. A wise judgment or suggestive idea was to 
him the most valuable thing in life, for which he waited, 
seeming always to expect it from his interlocutor, who- 
ever he was. 

In the company of men, the clearness and thorough- 
ness of his own thought, his perfect candor, and his con- 
fidence in others, with a certain briskness of manner and 
some fondness for the vernacular, gave to Mr. Ropes's 
conversation a tone of positiveness which may have ap- 

[ 24 ] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

peared at times as dogmatic. It was not so in spirit. His 
one object in discussion was the determination of the 
truth. He loved to clarify questions. It troubled him to 
see another groping for truth, or laboring in what seemed 
to him error, when light was to be had. He would work 
hard to convince, but he never sought to overbear an- 
other's mind. Good talk was his greatest enjoyment. He 
was at his best with a single congenial friend in the late 
hours of the evening. At such times the gravity, penetra- 
tion, elevation, and impressiveness of his conversation 
upon important themes raised it to the highest levels. 
He did not possess wit or iiumor in himself, altliough 
peculiarly appreciative of those qualities in others; nor 
had he largely the gift of uituition except as experience 
and sympathy gave him marked insight into character. 
His forte was in clearness of reasoning, impelled by the 
warmest moral earnestness. His thought was eminently 
practical. He disliked mere theories and fine-spun argu- 
ment. His views were large and sound. But he was in 
the best sense an idealist, from his absolute confidence 
in truth and his constant effort, in secret and public, to 
attain it. And what he attained he with unsurpassed fi- 
delity made the law of his thought and conduct. To fun- 
damental moral principles he was rigorously loyal. His 
religious ideas were the inspiration and practical incen- 
tive of his daily life. 

Mr. Ropes was highly social in disposition, readily be- 
came a friend, and few private men were more widely 
known in his own city and throughout the country. In 
his earlier years he appeared much in general society, but 
large companies became distasteful to him from their 
aimlessness and superficiality. Similarly, he never greatly 
enjoyed the ordinary life of clubs, although he belonged 

[ 25 ] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

to a number, as the Union, of which he was long an of- 
ficer, the St. Botolpli and the Puritan, in Boston; the 
University and the Harvard, of New York; and the 
University, of Philadelphia. His membership in the an- 
cient Wednesday Club he valued highly, and he very 
constantly attended its conversational reunions. A fel- 
low-member writes: "Our meetings will never be the 
same to me, now that Ropes is gone. I feel as if the 
Club had lost its inspiring genius." 

It is true that, entirely modest and singularly uncon- 
scious of self, the masculine force that was in him, his 
clear intelligence, and perfect frankness in the expres- 
sion of his opinions, gave him something of leadership 
in most societies. 

But JNIr. Ropes always liked best the intercourse of 
the dinner-table, for its mingled good cheer and oppor- 
tunity of pleasant conversation. A remarkable sodahty 
owes its origin to his instinct in this respect. Early in 
the winter after graduation, he proposed to a number 
of his classmates that the exceptionally happy associa- 
tions of their college life should be maintained by a 
monthly dinner together. They met for the first time, 
on his invitation, about the generous table of his father's 
house, where he was still hving. The informal organiza- 
tion which thus arose became the "Jacobite Club," as it 
was presently called in jocose allusion to his own Chris- 
tian name. Its delightful meetings, full of wit and hu- 
mor, of frank discussion, good-fellowship and ever-grow- 
ing mutual affection, have never been intermitted during 
more than forty years. They were to Ropes, as they have 
been to all its members, the choicest of social occasions, 
which no one, least of all its "Founder," ever willingly 
missed. 

[26] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

What such associations may mean to a serious man. 
Ropes himself testified. He once said, "I had rather 
have the confidence and respect of the Jacobite Chih 
than any reward tlie rest of the world could give me." 

Of his own agreeable dining-room the hospitalities 
were incessant. The material feast was simple though 
elegant; the spirit of the occasion was always uncon- 
strained and cheerful. He gathered about his table the 
widest variety of guests. I*ersons eminent in many walks 
continually sat there. One form of thoughtfulness was 
habitual with him. AVhen he expected guests of distinc- 
tion and accompUshments, he was apt to invite among 
them promising yoimg inen, to be stimulated and in- 
structed by such society. On Sunday evenings, as was 
well known to his young friends, his less formal dinner 
was always open to any who should come in, self-invited, 
and a group of such were usually there. They were fre- 
quently there, also, by casual invitation, on other even- 
ings, and the freshness of young hfe, their lively talk 
and animated discussions, their songs, in which he loved 
to join, their affection and confidence in him, made his 
house a home for himself and for them. They were 
aware of the hour at which he wished to retire to his 
study, and departed contented and happy. He knew 
how to be father and brother to them. Many collegians 
and other youths from a distance came to him, recom- 
mended by parents or friends, and for these he always 
accepted a serious responsibihty and gave them his 
watchful care. His last guest, on the evening of his 
lamented seizure, was a young student, recently intro- 
duced to him, who dined with INIr. Ropes alone. 

For a few years after his entrance upon professional 
life, Mr. Ropes remained a member of his father's family 

[ 27 ] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

in their ample home at 92 Beacon Street. On his father's 
death, in 1869, he removed with his mother and sister 
to 99 Mount Vernon Street, where he Uved until Octo- 
ber, 1873. After the death of his mother in that year, he 
made a prolonged visit to Europe, in company with his 
sister and other friends, on return from which he estab- 
Ushed himself in bachelor-quarters at 53 Temple Street. 
In October, 1883, he again occupied his house in Mount 
Vernon Street, and it continued his city home until his 
death. 

In the same year, 1883, he bought land at York Har- 
bor, Maine, and built a house, which he called the "Villa 
Tranquille," a name which he had remarked on a house 
in Mentone, and mentally appropriated." Here, except 
when he went abroad for his vacation, he spent all his 
remaining summers, and the " ViUa" became a centre of 
easy hospitality. He kept it full, chiefly of young guests, 
but older friends and many persons of distinction were 
entertained. His delightful afternoon dinners brought 
together cottage neighbors, friends from adjacent towns, 
litterateurs, officers of the army and navy, mingled old 

■ The inscription which he placed over the door of the Villa Tranqidlle , from 
the begiiining of the VI th Satire of Horace (Book II. J, was highly charac- 
teristic : — 

"Hoc erat in votis; modus agri non ita magnus 
Hortus uhi et tecto \ncinus jugis aqttcefons, 
Et paid turn silvft super hisforet. Auctius atque 
Di melius fecere. Bene est. Nil amplius oro, 
Maia nate, nisi ut propria hoec mihi munerafaxis." 
An occurrence in connection with this inscription greatly amused Mr. Hopes. 
An old and somewhat seedi/ waifarer havi?ig been invited upon the verandah 
during a shower, recogtuzed the verses at once, and with hearty appreciation, 
exclaimed, "Ah ! so old Flacciis has been here with his jack-knife, has he? 
Mr. Ropes used to say thai this incident made it worth while to have built 
the house. 

\ 2S ] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

and young. For the boys and girls he gave hirge evening 
parties, with music and dancing, to which swarmed the 
wliole youthful population, in response to his informal 
invitations, given personally as he moved among them 
in his morning strolls upon the beach. The evening of 
the Fourth of July was the occasion of an annual fete, 
with fireworks and balloons, never omitted until 1898, 
after which he would not seem by such a celebration to 
be approving the course of our Administration in the 
Spanish and Philippine wars. His own particular diver- 
sion was croquet, to which he gave many happy hours. 
Besides this, iiis only exercise was walking, of which at 
all seasons he was very fond, and which in early years 
he extended to distances of many miles. His vacations 
were short — of six weeks only — but that time he gave 
wholly to recreation. He would have no avoidable asso- 
ciations with work about the "V. T.," as it was familiarly 
called, and interdicted any but the most pressing com- 
munications from his office. He returned to town before 
the close of August, finding the late weeks of summer 
a favorable time for progress upon the successive volumes 
in the preparation of which he became engaged. 

In the prosecution of his literary work JNIr. Ropes's 
habits were, as in other matters, laborious, but free from 
nervous intensity. His library of special authorities was 
large, but he collected little material in the form of mem- 
oranda. His knowledge of his subjects was so thorough, 
even lesser details were carried so clearly in his photo- 
graphic memory, the subjects he dealt with had been 
so long considered, that he used singularly little of the 
apparatus of the writer, besides his pen. His care to en- 
sure final accuracy by reference to authorities was, how- 
ever, unwearied and minute. His visits to Europe had 

[29 ] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

given him opportunity to explore important localities 
connected witli the career of Napoleon, and he had, in 
like manner, traversed and inspected many of those as- 
sociated with the Civil War. He wrote slowly, with un- 
sparing revision, having successive portions of his work 
returned to him in type-written copies, for the greater 
freedom of criticism. Of the first volume of his histoiy 
of the Civil War he even had a small edition privately 
printed, in advance, to be subjected to the criticism of 
a number of his friends. To his labor on his books, he 
added that of a large correspondence elicited by them, 
to which he gave prompt and conscientious attention. 
Much of this was with former officers of the Southern 
Confederacy. He was in communication, also, with nu- 
merous military authorities abroad, and became the re- 
cipient of agreeable personal attentions from them dur- 
ing his European visits. 

Of these, Mr. Ropes made many. Besides the longer 
ones of his earlier years, it became his custom frequently 
to spend his summers in England and on the Continent. 
Strongly addicted to habit in his personal life, and enjoy- 
ing home comfort, he equally loved variety, and adapted 
himself to the incidents of journeying with a good hu- 
mor which made him the best of travelling-companions. 
For the sea and its associations he had an inherited love. 
His literary culture and wide historical information, his 
delight in nature and generous appreciation of the arts, 
with a vein of youthful romance which never failed him, 
kept him susceptible to the interest of every situation. 

On one of his European journeys he amused his lei- 
sure by collecting and collating all attainable portraits 
of Juhus Caesar, an account of which he later published 
in one of the magazines. 

[30] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

Although he attained honorable distinction in htera- 
ture and as an authority in the mihtary art, the hfe of 
]\Ir. Ropes remained characteristically that of a private 
man; and its comprehensive suggestion is of the widely 
reaching effect which such a hfe may exert. Ready to 
accept responsibility at the call of duty, he was by tem- 
perament averse from public functions. He loved the in- 
dependence of the private station, and appreciated and 
preferred personal intercourse as the effective channel 
of his influence upon his time. He discharged for many 
years the office of a Vestryman of Trinity Church, and 
he was for one or two terms an Overseer of Harvard 
University. But while at all times profoundly interested 
in pubUc affairs, thinking and conversing upon them 
with characteristic energy and clearness, and possessing, 
indeed, in his practical judgment, his knowledge of men, 
and his power of effective speaking, some of the best 
qualifications for public life, he entered the field of ac- 
tive pohtics only during the campaign of 1876, when he 
accepted the position of President of the Bristow Club, 
and made speeches in various parts of the State. 

Mr. Ropes's personal tastes and habits were most 
simple. His wants were few. He loved to be bountiful, 
and needed comfort, but he had no disposition to luxury. 
His private meals were almost frugal. He slept long and 
soundly and arose late. But he habitually extended the 
evening hours, which he best loved, to midnight, or will- 
ingly, if he had good company, far beyond it. He reserved 
an hour or more, before retiring, for personal reading. 
This was often only recreative, but usually it was serious 
and devotional. Throughout life, he was a diligent stu- 
dent of the New Testament and its literature, and with 
this he seems usually to have ended his day. His favorite 

[.SI ] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

edition of the Testament contained both the Greek and 
the English texts, and the two were habitually compared. 
AVell-worn books of devotion always lay beside the vol- 
ume. For the character and thought of Jesus, Mr. Ropes 
entertained a profound and sympathetic reverence, and 
he came more and more to deplore that their simplicity 
had been so deeply complicated by the subtleties of the- 
ology. In the Epistles of St. Paul he always found great 
suggestiveness, and he was thoroughly versed in the great 
Apostle's ideas and arguments. The theological system, 
however, in which his youth had been trained, and which 
was so largely founded upon apostolic tliought, lost most 
of its hold upon his mind, as it matured. 

Mr. Ropes continued in the exercise of his profession 
to the end. For the prosecution of his literary work, he 
latterly reserved to himself one or two days of the week, 
and he also gave up much of his forensic practice, as the 
property trusts of his firm, of which he was especially in 
charge, exacted more of his time. He reached his office 
at nearly mid-forenoon, but remained there till late af- 
ternoon, reserving only time for his walk before dinner. 
His evenings, which in former years were largely given 
to society, were latterly devoted chiefly to the compo- 
sition of his books. But his intimate friends knew that 
when the night had far enough waned, they were sure 
of his welcome, and of the inspiration of his cheerful, 
wise, and well-ordered talk. 

So passed among us a thoroughly genuine, earnest, 
serviceable, well-balanced, religious, manly life; a life 
founded in conscious loyalty to God, permeated by the 
sense of duty, and directed and warmed by love for men. 
Its many personal advantages were used, with singular 
fidelity, as talents lent. Its disadvantages were compen- 

[32 ] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

sated by a willing and philosophical acceptance of them, 
and the resolute appropriation of every source of strength 
and usefulness. It was recognized as a high moral privi- 
lege; devoted steadily to self-improvement; unweariedly 
consecrated to the service of fellow-men. 

John Codman Ropes was a highly characteristic ex- 
ample of the best possible issues of the ideas and princi- 
ples which have underlain and shajied the civilization of 
NcAv England. Robust in conscientiousness, tolerant but 
firm in conviction, self-reliant, virile, idealistic but prac- 
tical, he was gentle, affectionate, charitable, domestic, 
public-spirited, — a truly righteous man. His temper was 
serene and equable, free from self-indulgence, cheerful 
in the enjoyment of life's pleasant things, but singularly 
pure, unexacting, tender, and kind. As a citizen his pa- 
triotism was ardent but discriminating; he would have 
his country magnanimous, her institutions just, their ad- 
ministration pure. He loved the Church and its rites, and 
was diligent in his attendance on its ministrations, but 
was independent and even critical in thought, and in- 
capable of the sectarian spirit. Knowing the world well, 
he detested its evil, but a wide experience made him in- 
dulgent in his judgment of individuals. For friendship, 
he had a very genius. He adapted himself by instinct to 
persons of every class, responding quickly to their sym- 
pathies, respectful of their views, prompt to serve their 
interests. The humble loved him. He had the universal 
respect of his equals in culture and associations. Through 
his own candor and trustfulness he was a frank censor 
of conduct; but his keen insight, his balanced judgment, 
his power of sympathy but rigorous uprightness, made 
him an unequalled adviser of the young, of men in any 
kind of trouble, of the erring who regretted their ways. 

[33 ] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

He looked for <>ood in all men. Only of insincerity, im- 
purity, meanness, pretence, cruelty, and hardness of heart 
was he intolerant. Even for the animal world he had a 
singular tenderness. 

Mr. Ropes's remarkable vigor of mind and body was 
continued to him, unabated, to the last. The closing day 
of his conscious life was characteristic and happy. He 
went to his office, as usual, but found it, from some re- 
pairs, in disorder, so that he could not occupy it. He had 
always loved a holiday, but affected disappointment at 
beuig debarred from his desk. He jested with his office- 
staff' on their disposition to exclude him. "Well, I see 
that you prefer my room to my company," he said, and 
bade them what was his last kindly farewell. Returning 
to his home, he sent for his secretary, and passed the 
day in work upon his history of the Civil War. About 
five in the afternoon he ceased dictation, savins, "We 
have had a happy day, have we not? If we could have a 
year of such days as this, we should have our work done." 

After his customaiy hour of outdoor exercise, he dined, 
as has been stated, with a single guest, a young student 
lately introduced to his acquaintance. He finished the 
evening, as usual, in his study, but retired early. He was 
ready for bed when the final smnmons came, in some 
syinptom wliich caused him to call for aid. He was able 
to indicate that he was seriously ill, and to lie down 
without help. But when, in half an hour, his physician 
arrived, he could no longer articulate. Physical hfe con- 
tinued four days longer, but for him this world was no 
more. He breathed his last on October 28, 1899, his age 
being sixty -three years and six months. 

It was the beautiful, painless close of a well-spent life. 
With health and faculties wholly unimpaired, in the 

[ 34] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

midst of full prosperity, beloved and honored of all men, 
he laid down the burden and the joys of earthly being. 

From the community in which he was so valuable, 
from the wide circle of his friends, he seemed to be taken 
too soon. But those who knew him best and loved him 
most wiU not begrudge him his euthanasy. 



[35] 



ADDRESSES DELIVERED BEFORE 
THE MASSACHUSE'lTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY 

IN 

COMMEMORATION OF JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

NOVEMBER 9, 1899 



ADDRESS 
BY CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS 

OUR associate John Codman Ropes died at iiis 
house in Boston shortly after the midnight of 
Friday, the 27th-28th of last month. His brief 
illness dated from the previous Monday only. I make 
this announcement with a deep sense of personal loss, 
— the sense of a loss which can never be made good. I 
shall call upon others to pay tribute to him, — I cannot 
say others who have known him longer or even better 
than myself, or who prized his friendship more highly ; 
for I have known him since college days, close upon half 
a century ago, and known him well, and there were few 
indeed whose friendship I prized more highly. But I was 
not so fortunate as to be a member of the class of 1857, 
or his professional brother. Our associate Solomon Lin- 
coln was his classmate and famihar college friend ; and 
another of our associates and he lived long together in 
the daily contact of partners. It is fitting that these two 
should now put on lasting record in our Proceedings 
their estimate of the man and of his work. I shall there- 
fore confine myself to the announcement of his death, 
claiming only the friend's privilege of a few passing 
words. 

Mr. Ropes had been a member of our Society for more 
than nineteen years, having been elected at the June 
meeting of 1880. while Mr. Winthrop was still its Presi- 
dent. Our friend Dr. Green, now our Dean, then stood 
thirty-second on the roll ; and, in the years which have 
since intervened, Mr. Ropes rose almost exactly to the 
position which Dr. Green held when Mr. Ropes was 

[ 39] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

elected. At the time of his death the latter stood thirty- 
first in the order of our seniority. Though deeply inter- 
ested and very eminent in his particular branch of liistori- 
cal research, Mr. Ropes, greatly to our loss, never made 
himself essentially part and parcel of this Society, or 
participated with any regularity in its proceedings or its 
work. The reason was not far to seek. He was absorbed 
in another Society, not dissimilar in character, the Mili- 
tary Historical Society of Massachusetts, which he origi- 
nated. Of it he was the soul, and in his judgment that 
Society had greater claims upon him. Our loss was its 
gain; but none the less for us a loss much to be de- 
plored. Had it so chanced that Mr. Ropes had identified 
himself exclusively with our organization and our field 
of work, — associating himself with us and it, — he would 
have proved one of the most valuable and fruitful addi- 
tions ever made to our number; for, a hard worker, he 
also was essentially what Dr. Johnson called "a club- 
bable man," and, being such, he would have connnuni- 
cated to us a distinct impetus long perceptible. As it 
was, we saw him only occasionally at our meetings, and 
heard from him far less frequently than we wished. He 
was here on the 13th of last April, when he did me the 
compliment to come that he might listen to the address 
I was that day to dehver; and it is now matter of no 
little satisfaction to me that it then came in my way to 
make an allusion to him and his reputation as a military 
critic, which the audience appreciated in hearty fashion, 
giving him a pleasure he did not hesitate to show. 
Otherwise, through his nineteen years of membership, 
we have seen him chiefly when tribute was to be ren- 
dered to some one of our Society who had done service 
in the Rebellion, or when a militarv theme was un- 

[ 40 ] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

derstood to be likely to come under discussion. He thus 
paid tributes to Generals Palfrey, Devens, and Walker; 
of the first two of whom, also, he prepared memoirs, 
published in our Proceedings. In 1887 he also furnished 
a memoir of the late John C. Ciray. He served twice on 
the Committee annually appointed to nominate officers; 
and, at the time of his death, was a member of the Com- 
mittee on Historical Manuscripts. 

It only remains for me to say a few words of a friend, 
.lohn Ropes — for in tliis connection I cannot call him 
Mr. Ropes, or refer to him formally as "our associate" 
— was as genuine, as individual a man as it has been my 
good fortune to meet in life,- — in cliaracter supremely 
attractive. He was a man not easy to portray. There was 
about him something unexpected. He was .w// generis, 
in mind as in body. Tlie most manly of men, he was also 
at times childlike in iiis frank, outspoken simplicity. In 
him the social side was strongly developed. He loved 
to talk; he delighted in the club and the dinner-table; 
he was hospitable to a degree; he was kind and sympa- 
thetic and thoughtful of others. Delightfully illogical, a 
keen critic in his way, despising cant and pretence, — out- 
spoken, courageous, straightforward, — he was also reli- 
gious, though in a characteristic way. In no degree what 
is best described as fervid or pious, he had been an inter- 
ested student of theology, and loved to discuss its prob- 
lems. Very tolerant of difference, he himseh' felt tiie 
need of fixedness ui faith; and yet he early craved some- 
thing wider and richer in expression and sympathy than 
the creeds native to New England in wliich he had been 
nurtured. He accordingly identified himself with that 
broader Episcopacy to which he afterwards devoutly and 
conscientiously adhered. His was no inanimate or ab- 

[41 ] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

stract religion. Living in an atmosphere of agnosticism, 
he was no agnostic. Quite otherwise, indeed. But I do not 
know that his character in these respects, which all who 
knew him well felt, was ever more clearly and, I may 
add. touchingly revealed to me, — by a flash as it were, 
— than through an anecdote which came to me from a 
female friend of his and mine. It seems that John Ropes 
was one day to dine with her. A few hours before the 
appointed time he called, in some agitation., to tell her 
that he could not come. His mother, very old, had some 
time been failing; and the end was now evidently close 
at hand. Shortly before they had suddenly lost a son and 
favorite brother, Frank, of about the age of John. So 
now John came to call upon the lady I have referred to, 
to explain his absence; and with deep emotion he told 
her that his mother knew she had not long to live, and 
he could not leave her even for a moment ; for it was her 
hope and his tliat she would retain her fticulties to the 
\ery end, so that, dying, she might carry fresh word from 
him to Frank. It was characteristic in its outspoken sim- 
plicity, its lovableness, its unhesitating expression of 
childlike faith. 

Friendly himself, no one had more friends than he. 
This was touchingly evident at his funeral. Here was a 
man who had known neither wife nor child ; past sixty 
years; a student, living alone. He dies, and the whole 
community crowds to Trinity to bear witness to him. 
Nor did the expression come from any one quarter or 
from a single class. It was as widespread as it was gen- 
uine ; and those there had come, not to pay conventional 
respect, but because they felt that they wanted to be 
there. The individuality of the man had been pervasive. 

Physically never able to bear arms himself, John 

[ 42] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

Ropes had an abnost inordinate admiration for those 
who had acconiphshed great feats of arms. His hero- 
worship of Napoleon, for instance, scarcely knew bounds, 
whether of fact or logic or morals. With him it was a 
cult. His enthusiasm, however, never annoyed, or ex- 
cited a spirit of controversy. It was accepted, and dis- 
missed, as his. This worship of Napoleon, it is almost 
needless to say, was shared by me only under very dis- 
tinct limitations; that, however, between us made no 
sort of difference, and one of the days of my life I re- 
member most vividly and account most fortunate was 
a day at the close of June, five years ago, passed in his 
company on the field of Waterloo. His book on Water- 
loo had appeared only the year before, and he and I had 
frequently discussed the plan and incidents of that cam- 
paign, though I had never been upon the field. He had 
been there often ; and it was now an all-day pleasure to 
see the genuine, overfowing delight with which he took 
an interested novice over the famous battle-ground. He 
was familiar with its every feature, and seemed to linger 
almost lovingly about the spot from which the Emperor 
is allesred to ha\'e watched the advance and overthrow of 
his guard. For me, at least, the occasion was one not to 
be forgotten. 

In his pecuhar province of mihtary history John 
Ropes's study was inexhaustible and his grasp surpris- 
ing. He seemed equally ready on the minutest detail or 
the largest operation./ The hour and direction of every 
movement were ready at his tongue. I remember a very 
characteristic uicident illustrative of this. He was deeply 
interested on the part of General "Ealdy" Smith in one 
of those paper controversies, almost as innumerable as 
they were interminable, which grew out of the opera- 

[ 43 ] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

tions of the Civil War. That particuhir debate had to do 
with the momentous f'aihire of General Smith to occupy 
Petersburg on the evening of June 15, 1864, after the 
works protecting that place had been successfully car- 
ried. At Ropes's table one evening, a year or two ago, the 
subject came up for discussion in a numerous company, 
and some question arose as to certain matters of detail. 
It so chanced that, though he was unaware of the fact, 
I had then been on the ground; and I casually stated 
my recollection of what took place. I spoke from mem- 
ory of things which happened thirty-four years before, 
and I have little doubt that I was altogether wrong. In 
any case, my recollection militated strongly against the 
result of his study of the facts, and he sharply questioned 
me. My answers were apparently not satisfactory; as he 
bluntly declared in reply, " I don't believe you were there 
at all!" Ordinarily such a challenge of accuracy, not to 
say veracity even, would tend at least to bring conversa- 
tion to a close, and. speaking strictly within bounds, to 
generate a sense of injury. With me, in the case of John 
Ropes, it did nothing of the kind. I was amused, as well 
as staggered in my faith in my own memoiy. It never 
even occurred to me that he could mean to offend; it 
was his way: and, moreover, I felt he was probably right. 
The chances of his being so were in any event so great 
that I had no inclination to set up my recollection of 
thirty-four years' standing against his thorough study of 
the case. So I contented myself with having in my rep- 
ertory one more characteristic anecdote of my lifelong 
friend. 

Almost every man carries lodged in his memory cer- 
tain familiar lines or catches which recur instinctively 
when he hears of the loss of friends. These vary with the 

[ 44 j 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

periods of life. In my own case I find myself in later 
years repeating more and more Hamlet's fatalistic words, 
not less sad than philosopiiic: "If it be now, 'tis not to 
come ; if it be not to come, it will be now ; if it be not 
now, yet it will come : the readiness is all ; since no man 
has aught of what he leaves, what is 't to leave betimes ? 
Let be. " Om* associate left "betimes." It is not easy to 
cast the balance and say whether for him it was well or 
ill. He had enjoyed life, and been the fruitful cause of 
its enjoyment by others; his life, also, had been a full one, 
— useful, much occupied, not unduly short. He had in 
his peculiar field won distinction, and an acknowledged 
authority. I greatly question whether he had ever tasted 
what, for him, were the pleasures of life more keenly 
and pleasantly than at what proved its closing period. 
He had come, in the quick passage of the years, to a 
point for him fraught with peculiar danger. The grand 
climacteric was passed; and though he still retained the 
full measure of his physical and mental healtli, he had no 
family of his own. The best was unquestionably behind. 
For him the future could not have been better than the 
past; it might well have been in strong contrast with it. 
That he would have borne declining strength and shat- 
tered powers cheerfully and manfully, no one who knows 
him can for a moment doubt; but he would have felt 
deeply, if silently, the loss of his accustomed pleasures; 
nor could he have lived an idle valetudinarian. 

As it was, deeply interested in his great work, he had 
passed the last summer in his dearly loved vacation home 
at York, and in the autumn returned to his familiar 
Boston haunts, feeling in peculiarly good case and hope- 
ful. His book was half done; he saw his way deep into 
the remaining half. All went well ; there was no premoni- 

[ 45] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

tion. Contrary to his custom, on the for him fateful day, 
he left his office earlier than usual, some work of repair 
or innovation being in progress, giving himself a partial 
holiday, which with him meant some additional hours of 
enjoyment amid the familiar surroundings of his work- 
ing room at home, intent upon his theme. The office did 
not see him again. That afternoon he labored over some 
campaign problem. He then dined in his wonted way, 
and, about nine o'clock, again resorted to his library. 
He was not again seen before his illness. Apparently he 
had there ended the day earlier than was his custom, for 
everything was found in the order usual with him. It is 
very probable that he felt some indication of what was 
impending, — became conscious that all was not well 
with him, felt that something was going wrong. So, 
presently, leaving his bed and calling an old servant, he 
told her to ring up a physician, who in ten minutes was 
with him. Already his mind had ceased to work clearly; 
and. in a few minutes more, he was unconscious. Nature 
never rallied. The end for him had come. As Hamlet 
said, — "Let be." 

In the preface to his "Introduction to the Literature 
of Europe, " Hallam, after lamenting over the impos- 
sibility of exhausting his inexhaustible theme, and re- 
cording his sense of the imperfection of his work, adds 
solemnly: "But I have other warnings to bind up my 
sheaves while I may, — my own advancing years, and 
the gathering in the heavens." Our friend and associate 
left his sheaves but partially gathered, — in his case, a 
distinct loss to history, for he was engaged in dealing 
with a most interesting period, and, by nature, acqui- 
sition and training, he was peculiarly qualified to deal 
with it instructively. A richly fi-eighted vessel, with its 

[ 46 ] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

large and carefully assorted cargo, slowly accumulated, 
has gone suddenly down. The loss is pubhc. For us, the 
fast-narrowing circle of those who were together at Har- 
vard before the great cataclysm, the passing of John 
Ropes is an event not less suggestive than irremediable. 
For him, he has merely gone betimes. "'Tis not to 
come." 



[47] 



ADDRESS 
BY SOLOMON LINCOLN 

THERE was perhaps no citizen of Boston whose 
death could leave a sense of loss more widely 
spread than that of Mr. Ropes. He touched the 
activities and interests of life in this community at many 
points, and the large and distinguished attendance at his 
funeral testifies both to the personal regard in which he 
was held and to the large part he took in important af- 
fairs. He leaves a vacant place everywhere. Occupying a 
private station, at his death he has received almost pub- 
he honors. 

Those of us who knew him in college readily bear wit- 
ness to the early exhibition of those qualities of mind 
and character which have marked his whole career. His 
mature manhood was the simple and direct development 
of his early traits. While maintaining a high rank in 
scholarship, he was distinguished then, as always, for the 
sohdity rather than the brilliancy of his attainments, for 
a retentive and trustworthy memory, for an extensive 
and accurate familiarity with historical literature, for in- 
dependent thought, for self-reliance, for the sobriety and 
soundness of his judgments, and for a thorough knowl- 
edge of whatever he studied, by which he acquired clear 
thought and a capacity for terse and forcible expression. 

Possessing these qualities and capacities, they were 
manifested in all his studies and labors, and in all brought 
legitimate success. 

He chose the profession of the law, but in practice he 
naturally inclined to the work of the office rather than 
that of the courts, although he did not neglect nor avoid 

r 49 1 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

the latter. He made little attempt at forensic display, 
but sought to convince by plain statement and fair argu- 
ment, and his blows were driven home by the potent 
force of his high character. Naturally, too, he cultivated 
the literature of the profession. He and his partner, ovir 
associate Mr. Gray, were the first editors of the Ameri- 
can Law Review, and they laid its foundations so firmly 
that it still endures. His tastes and his physical infirmity 
tended to confirm him in an office practice, and he grad- 
ually fell into a large and increasing management of 
great trusts, gladly confided to his good judgment and 
his integrity. 

But though faithful to his profession, it by no means 
absorbed his energies. He was far too generous-minded 
not to take a keen interest in all great questions which 
temporarily or permanently occupy men's minds. For 
instance, ecclesiastical history and theological discussion 
always attracted him. He was not accustomed to form 
his religious opinions on trust or by inheritance. He 
thought for himself. He early investigated the systems 
of Protestant theology, and after some doubt finally at- 
tached himself to the Episcopal church. Having thus 
given his allegiance to this church, he gave it active sup- 
port, both as a parish officer and by faithful attendance 
upon its services. He held most intimate relations with 
its ministers; and many clergymen, not merely of his 
own church, but of other denominations, were his closest 
friends. They recognized in him a man of deeply rever- 
ential and religious character, and one whose religious 
life was supplemented by many quiet benefactions. 

His habit of wide reading always remained, although 
necessarily limited by the occupations of a busy life. He 
gave himself chiefly to history. Our Society early recog- 

[ 50'] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

nized his acquisitions and his distinction in this field. He 
was chosen a member on June 10, 1880; and if he was 
less interested than some members in the special objects 
of the Society, it was because he devoted himself to 
more distant although kindred fields of investigation. 

From college days through life he was especially in- 
terested in the first Napoleon, and he studied his career 
with incessant and minute care. He verified his knowl- 
edge by visits to the great battlefields, and collected an 
interesting and curious mass of material and memorabilia 
relating to his hero. He published much upon this sub- 
ject, and his works became authorities, the most impor- 
tant being the "Campaign of Waterloo," published in 
1892. This is a copious and learned account of that great 
struggle, and however we may agree or disagree with the 
author in his conclusions, there can be but one opinion 
of the remarkable knowledge, research, and critical skill 
which these books display. Among Mr. Ropes's friends 
it is not extravagant to say that he has indissolubly as- 
sociated his name with that of Napoleon. 

Always liberal and wholesome in his political opinions, 
he took the most patriotic interest in our Civil War. 
Himself debarred by physical infirmity from active ser- 
vice, his heart was in it. He was in close correspondence 
with many relatives and friends who were engaged in 
the great conflict, and the loss of his youngest brother, 
who was killed at Gettysburg, seemed only to deepen 
his interest and his devotion. 

It is singular that this quiet gentleman of peaceful 
tastes, both inherited and cultivated, should yet be per- 
haps best pubhcly known as the historian of war. 

He followed the movements of our armies with a 
knowledge and intelligent criticism which were marvel- 

[ 51 ] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

lous in a civilian, and this knowledge ripened through 
long years of acquisition until at last it displayed its full 
fruition in the two volumes of the "Story of the Civil 
War" which he lived to publish. The Story must remain 
unfinished, but the author lived to enjoy the wide fame 
it commanded, not limited to our country, but gener- 
ously granted in foreign lands. This quiet and unostenta- 
tious civilian, who never shouldered a gun, was an au- 
thority with whom generals of both armies debated, and 
to whose opinion they deferred. 

Nor did he confine himself to the larger matters to 
which I have adverted, but to all good causes he lent 
the assistance due from a public-spirited citizen. His 
College was always dear to him, and he served long and 
faithfully on its Board of Overseers. 

The qualities with which all who knew him were fa- 
miliar were displayed in his hterary style. This was not 
ornate, but terse, emphatic, and clear. There was no 
doubt of the writer's meaning, nor sign of hesitation in 
expressing it. 

Thus this modest citizen, a type of an earlier fashion, 
has passed his dignified life always in a private position, 
yet securing a respect and an influence to which no offi- 
cial station could have added. 

And yet those who have known him for a lifetime 
would feel that little had been said if these professional 
and literary achievements were alone mentioned. It was 
the engaging personal qualities of the man which en- 
deared him to his friends, and which never lost their 
charm. His college classmates knew him, as they and 
all his associates have always known him, to be the 
hearty, unselfish, cheery friend, generous in his appre- 
ciation of others, interested in their ambitions and their 

[ 52 ] 



JOHN CODIMAN ROPES 

sorrows, and lavish of commendation. His popularity 
was universal. The many who were privileged to visit 
his home will long remember his boundless and sunny 
hospitality. The charm of his qualities was perhaps there 
best displayed. His guests left him conscious not merely 
of a gracious welcome, but of a certain clear mental and 
moral gain, the fruit of sound opinion and healthful dis- 
cussion. Yet he was no ascetic. No one enjoyed more 
than he the lighter pleasures of social intercourse, and 
in them his keen and thoroughly appreciative sense of 
humor prompted him to play his full part. 

The burden of physical infirmity which he always bore 
produced no bitterness. He had no animosities; if argu- 
mentative, he was not controversial. And to the last he 
exhibited the vivacity of youth, maintained and stimu- 
lated largely by his constant association with young men, 
whose patron he was, and among whom his sincerest 
mourners will be found. 

Immediately after his graduation he organized a small 
club of classmates who have dined together monthly 
during the cooler months of more than forty years. Here 
he, the founder, exercised a benignant sway, and it may 
well be understood that this broken circle can hardly be 
restored. 



[ 5» ] 



ADDRESS 

BY JOHN C. GRAY 

1DO not propose to speak of Mr. Ropes's historical 
labors in detail. Many of this company are far more 
competent to judge them than I am. Their main 
quaUties are well marked: Great industry in the collec- 
tion of authorities. He was not a rapid reader, but he 
never had to read anything twice. His memory, to the 
minutest circumstances of date and place, was remark- 
able. Then he had unusual power of mastering the de- 
tails of a complicated transaction and of setting forth 
the result in a lucid, orderly, and attractive manner, 
so as to be alike instructive to specialists and intelli- 
gible to the ordinary reader. And, finally, he had an 
intense desire to find out and tell the truth. He wel- 
comed the expression of adverse views, not that he 
might confute them, but that he might seriously, with- 
out pride of opinion, consider what there was in them 
of truth. 

Mr. Ropes was by profession a lawyer. I have been 
associated with him for nearly forty years in the study 
and practice of the law. As an advocate he excelled in 
the quality which I have mentioned as marking his his- 
torical work, — a great facility in putting order into a 
chaos of conflicting facts and in guiding the court or 
a jury through it in a clear and persuasive manner. He 
might have risen, I have always thought, to distinction 
in the active practice of the courts; but circumstances 
drew him aside from forensic work, and the greater part 
of his time was devoted to the management of property 
in trust. I find, on looking at his books, that at the time 

[55] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

of his death he had charge of more than a hundred trusts, 
some of considerable size and some very small, though 
these last were ofEen more troublesome, and of more im- 
portance to the persons interested, than were the larger 
ones. They were all, large and small, guarded with the 
same conscientious care. Mr. Ropes made no pretence 
to great financial knowledge or shrewdness, but his large 
experience, his prudence, his methodical habits of busi- 
ness, his common-sense carried his trusts through pe- 
riods of business depression and failure with a success 
gratifying to himself and to his beneficiaries. 

But Mr. Ropes was more remarkable as a man than 
as an historian or a lawyer. Nature had given him a strong 
constitution, but he was stricken in boyhood with a se- 
vere infirmity. The energy with which he determined in 
youth that this physical disability should not form an 
essential factor in his life, and should leave no mark on 
his naturally high spirit, excited the admiration of aU 
who knew him. 

But he was to be put to a severe test. He was a born 
soldier, and from boyhood had nursed his spirit on sto- 
ries of martial deeds. The Civil War broke out. His 
brother, his nearest friends and companions were going 
into the army. Had he been an able-bodied man, he 
would have been among the foremost to seek a com- 
mission, not, like many of his contemporaries, merely 
from a sense of duty, but as seizing the opportunity to 
gratify his dearest wish and his highest ambition. He 
would have rejoiced to have 

''''Drunk diiight of battle icith his peers.'''' 

But it could not be. He was absolutely debarred. Like 
Troubridge stranded in the Culloden at the battle of 

[56 ] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

the Nile, he was, in the words of Nelson, compelled to 
stand idly by, "while his more fortunate companions 
were in the full tide of happiness." 

It was undoubtedly the greatest affliction of his hfe. 
To many men — I think I may say to most men — it 
would have brought bitterness or, at best, inditterence 
to the struggle. 

But Mr. Ropes's most striking quality was magna- 
nimity. There was not a grain of envy in his whole na- 
ture. He could not himself go to the war; he would do 
all that was possible for those who did. In watching 
over their interests, in ministering to their wants, in 
writing inmnnerable letters, whose arrivals, as I can tes- 
tify, were the best moments iii the dull monotony of 
camp hfe, he was never weary. This feeling was conse- 
crated by the death of his brother, who was killed at 
Gettysburg. And after the war closed, the interest which 
lay nearest to his heart was to perpetuate the memory 
of the events of a war in which he himself could not 
take part. 

Mr. Ropes was a man of strong, very strong, religious 
feelings ; he came from the purest of Puritan stock, but, 
like his excellent father before him, he escaped many of 
the weaknesses of the Puritan character. He had no taste 
for small scruples. He was no ascetic. Within the limit 
of becoming mirth, he dearly loved a jest. He was in the 
best sense a man of the world. He "saw life steadily and 
saw it whole." He believed in the duty of cheerfulness. 
His virtues were positive, not negative. His thoughts 
were not hoAV to mortify himself, but how to help others. 
His generosity was boundless, his charity unfailing. He 
had a keen insight into character, and knew well the 
faults and foibles of his friends, but he cared not to 

[ 57 J 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

dwell on them, and they made no difference in his af- 
fection. 

He was in many ways an old-fashioned man. The 
modern schemes of general philanthropy he respected, 
but he took little interest in them, and felt no vocation 
to share in them. Many years ago he said to me that he 
believed the best way for him to aid his fellows was by 
helping individual young men. And thoroughly did he 
discliarge the self-imposed duty and this not only, nor 
chiefly, by money, though he was a liberal giver, whose left 
hand knew not what his right hand did. To scores of men 
in trouble or temptation his sagacious counsel, his cheer- 
ful courage, his high sense of honor and duty, his unaf- 
fected sympathy have brouglit the needed strength. JMany 
young men, all over the country, and some no longer 
young, can testify that tliey have had no friend like 
him. He had, indeed, a genius for friendship. Each of his 
friends felt that he was not like any other friend to Mr. 
Ropes, but that there was something special in their par- 
ticular relation. And so there was. I was much struck 
bv the truth of what a young man said to me since Mr. 
Ropess death: "I have had many kind friends to sym- 
pathize with me in my troubles. They have tried to put 
themselves in my place, and think how they would have 
felt. Mr. Ropes was the only one who knew how / felt." 

As might be supposed, Mr. Ropes was given to hos- 
pitality. For the last sixteen years of his life he was a 
householder, and 1 doubt if during that time there has 
been any table in Boston at which there have been so 
many eminent men seated, and so much good talk; and 
among the good talkers the host was one of the best. 
But he was no lion-hunter. The same kindness of heart 
marked his conduct there as elsewhere. If you dined 

[ -^>H 1 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

with Mr. Ropes, you might find yourself at table with 
an admiral, an ambassador, or an arciibishop, but you 
might also find yourself with a young Ueutenant or stu- 
dent. 

Mr. Ropes felt that his life had been singularly fortu- 
nate and happy. And lie was fortunate and happy in his 
end; with "no cold gradations of decay," death freed his 
strong soul from his frail body — "the nearest way." 



[59] 



ADDRESS 

BY GEORGE B. CHASE 

IN their fond recollections of Jolin Ropes, gentle- 
men who preceded me have spoken of the many, 
many years they knew him. But in length of years, 
if not in daily intimate association with him, my own 
acquaintance with Ropes exceeded that of almost any 
person now living. Ropes and 1 were schoolfellows as 
far back as 1843, and both in that year and in 1844 we 
crossed the Common almost daily on our way to school 
in Chauncy Place. Few greater changes have occurred 
in the outward aspect of Boston in the last half-century 
than those we both lived to witness in the quiet streets 
through which we walked to and from school so long 
ago. I remember Ropes in those years as a bright, health- 
ful boy and an especial favorite with the pretty assistant 
teacher who, living near him, usually accompanied us 
home from school. 

/ Ropes's deformity, which in any account of this most 
notable man as he lived among us cannot be overlooked, 
so much did it seem to serve as a foil to the remarkable 
powers of his mind, was a curvature of the spine. This 
was thought to have begun about his thirteenth year 
and grew unobserved upon him until the return, after 
long absence, of a near relative, who at once noticed 
something amiss in the boy's appearance. Then it was 
found that the mischief already done could not be re- 
paired. The attitude the boy was wont for some reason 
to assume, when bending over his book in long hours of 
reading or study, was supposed by his family to have 
been the cause of his malformation. 

[61 ] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

So much has been said here to-day, and so well said, 
in Ropes 's memory that I touch but lightly on my own 
recollections of him. It must be nearly twenty years 
since John Ropes was appointed by the President a visi- 
tor to West Point. During the visitation of that year I 
arrived at the Point one afternoon, and, finding Ropes 
sitting in the shade of the parade ground, sat a long time 
with him before and after evening parade, as he talked 
of his impressions of the Academy. A few hours later I 
heard Professor Micliie speak to the guests — some of 
them officers of high rank, and General Schofield was 
among them — whom he had gathered in his home that 
evening of Ropes's attainments. "He is a prodigy, an 
astonishing man," he said. "Why, gentlemen, he knows 
more about what happened in the field between '61 
and '65 than all of us here together." 

But one word more. In the spring of 1861 Ropes car- 
ried off the Bowdoin prize offered to resident graduates 
at Harvard for an essay on Mansel's "Limits of Reli- 
gious Thought." Thus early in life did he show how 
largely the subject of religion had engaged his atten- 
tion, and I believe myself well within the truth in say- 
ing, as I look back upon the life now closed, that few 
men trained to other pursuits have lived in our time 
among us who gave to religious study and meditation 
deeper or more sustained thought than the friend whose 
sudden taking off we deplore, and the charm of whose 
society we shall so long remember. 



[62] 



ADDRESS 

BEFORE THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF 

ARTS AND SCIENCES 

BY JOHN FISKE 



ADDRESS 
BY JOHN FISKE 

JOHN CoDMAN Ropes was born in St. Petersburg, 
Russia, April "28, 1836, and died at his house, 99 
Mount Vernon Street, Boston, early in the morn- 
ing of October 28, 1899. He was elected a Fellow of the 
Academy in May, 1885. His father was William Ropes, 
a native of Salem, and his mother was Mary Anne Cod- 
man, daughter of Hon. John Codman. AVilliam Ropes 
was for some time engaged in business in St. Petersburg, 
but removed to London in 1837 and lived for some time 
at Islington, where a younger son, the late Dr. F. C. 
Ropes, was born. 

After the return of the family to Boston John Ropes 
studied for a while at the Chauncy Hall School, but at 
about the age of fourteen he was obliged to leave school 
on account of a physical infirmity. Up to that time he 
had been perfectly well and his figure was erect and 
shapely. But at about that time a slight curvature of the 
spine became apparent, which increased rapidly until it 
became a noticeable malformation. This physical defor- 
mity did not embarrass the action of heart or lungs, and 
during his entire life his health was remarkably good. 
But nevertheless the deformity was a very serious bur- 
den and prevented Ropes from engaging in activities 
which would have been most conffenial to him. I might 
add that to those who loved him — and no one knew 
him who did not — this malformation was simply non- 
existent. In sitting and talking with him one never 
thought of him as different from other men. 

After leaving the Chauncy Hall School, Ropes was for 

[65 ] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

a while under the care of Dr. Buckminster Brown. He 
then resumed liis studies under Professor Goodwin, who 
acted as his private tutor and fitted him for college. He 
was graduated at Harvard in 1857 and soon afterwards 
entered the Law School, where he received his LL.B. 
in 1861. While he was proficient in the work of the 
Law School, it is interesting to observe that in that 
early time he also took a deep interest in questions of 
philosophy and religion. He was always a man of pro- 
foundly religious nature, with all the strength and ear- 
nestness of Puritanism, but without its ascetic features. 
In the year of his graduating at the Law School he re- 
ceived the Bowdoin prize for an essay on "The Limits 
of Religious Thought," — a title which strongly suggests 
that his mind had been exercised by the famous book 
of Dean Mansel which we were all then reading. For 
a short time Ropes studied in the office of Peleg W. 
Chandler and George O. Shattuck. He was admitted to 
the bar November 28, 18(il, and continued to practise 
law in Boston until the time of his death. In 18G5 he 
formed a partnership with John Chipman Gray of the 
class of 1859; and thirteen years later W. C. Loring 
of the class of 1872 was added to the firm, which has 
since been known as Ropes, Gray and Loring. Ropes's 
professional work was almost entirely confined to the of- 
fice. Possibly his physical difficulty may have had some- 
thing to do with this. He had all the qualities which 
might have placed him in the very highest ranks as an 
advocate before the court. He had an almost infallible 
scent for the essential points in a case, he could disen- 
tangle the most complicated details, he could hunt for 
evidence with a kind of cosmic patience that took everv- 
thing with the utmost deliberation but never let slip the 

[66 ] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

minutest detail, and he could marshal his arguments 
with a logical power that was etiualled only by the ar- 
tistic beauty of statement. To hear him argue any point 
was a genuine delight both to one's reason and to one's 
aesthetic sense. W^ith all these rare endowments as an 
advocate. Ropes confined himself principally to business 
that could be done in the office, especially to the care 
and management of trust estates. At the time of his 
death there were more than a hundred trust estates, 
large and small, in his hands. He had long ago estab- 
lished his reputation as a safe person for taking care of 
money. He always showed sound judgment in making 
investments, and I suspect that one secret of his suc- 
cess was that minute and systematic attention to detail 
which characterized everything that he did. 

The high qualities which might have made him a 
great advocate found a rich field for their employment 
in work done outside of office hours; and it is after all 
by that literary work that he will be longest and most 
widely known. The recollection of his professional work 
will of course pass away or be confined to very few per- 
sons after the present generation. But his contributions 
to history have excellences which are likely to secure 
for them a very long life. His published writings relate 
almost entirely to military history, in which his two 
chief topics were the career of Napoleon and the Civil 
War in America. I think there was in Ropes's nature an 
infusion of the true soldier. Had he been physically com- 
petent for service, he would probably have taken part 
in the Civil War, like his younger brother Henry, whose 
brief life was ended at Gettysburg, I fancy that the in- 
capacity for service was a real grief to .Tohn Ropes, but 
it never seemed to disturb his serenity of spirit. If he 

[ 67 ] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

could not be useful in one way he could in another. If 
he could not follow in the footsteps of Alexander, he 
might at least in those of Arrian. The thought of writ- 
ing a history of the Civil War was one which grew with 
him into a settled purpose, and very admirable was the 
sort of preparation which he made for it. It was natural 
that the subjects uppermost in his mind should come 
up for discussion in the pleasant evening hours at the 
club. Gradually there grew up a habit of holding meet- 
ings at his house, meetings in which veterans of what- 
ever rank could compare their experiences and discuss 
mooted questions. Ropes strongly encouraged the pres- 
ervation of every scrap of experience that could be put 
upon record, and thus grew up the habit of preparing 
historical papers to be read and discussed at these in- 
formal meetings. In this way Ropes became the founder 
of a most valuable institution, — the Military Historical 
Society of Massachusetts. For several years this body 
held its meetings at Ropes's house, where the speaker 
of the evening was apt to dine before the meeting and 
where the sessions were sure to end with a social glass 
and abounding good-fellowship. The pubUcations of this 
Society, though few in number, are of great value. In 
recent years it has found a permanent habitation in one 
of the rooms of the Cadet Armory where Ropes, some 
time ago, placed the larger part of his valuable histori- 
cal Ubrary. 

One of the first literary results of these studies was 
an elaborate examination of the Virginia Campaign of 
General Pope in 1862, a summary of which was fur- 
nished by Ropes in his volume entitled "The Army 
under Pope," being one of tlie volumes of Scribner's 
series on the Civil War. Among other things it may be 

[ G8] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

said of this book that it completely exonerates General 
Fitz John Porter from the charges brought against hiui 
afler the second battle of Bull Run and upon wliich he 
was so unjustly and cruelly condemned. I have been 
told that Ropes's weighty presentation of the case ex- 
erted no small influence upon the final verdict which 
declared General I'orter iiuiocent and went as far as 
possible toward repairing the grievous wrong that had 
been done. If no other result had come from founding 
the INIihtary Historical Society, this alone would have 
more than justified its existence. 

But Ropes's magnum opus, "The Story of the Civil 
War," was unfortunately never completed. It would 
have filled four volumes, and death removed the author 
soon after the publication of the second. The loss is one 
that can never be made good. Other writers of course 
may go over the period which Ropes failed to cover, but 
nobody can complete his book, for it is a case in which 
the writer's individual characteristics and personal ex- 
perience are the all-important features. We have heard 
much in recent years of the advantages of the coopera- 
tive method in writing history, whereby a hundred ex- 
perts may take each a small fragment of the ground to 
be covered. The merits of such a method are not denied, 
but it has one great defect: it gives us Hamlet with the 
Prince of Denmark left out. In an historical narrative 
nothing can make up for the personality of the narra- 
tor. A hundred experts on the Civil War would not fill 
Ropes's place for the simple reason that their hundred 
individual experiences cannot be combined in the same 
stream of consciousness. Ropes had gathered experience 
from every quarter; he had not only read pretty much 
everything worth reading on his subject, he had not only 

[ 69 ] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

delved with endless patience in the original documents, 
but he had obtained through social intercourse with sol- 
diers now passed away a truly enormous fund of infor- 
mation, a great part of which has surely perished with 
him. I remember that during the last two or three years 
the thought sometimes occurred to him that he might 
not live to finish his book. He told me one day that he 
only lacked eight years of being threescore and ten, and 
that eight years were all too short a period for finishing 
the two volumes that remained to be done; he must 
therefore "scorn delight and five laborious days." He 
was always extremely fond of society; no man more 
keenly enjoyed a dinner-party or an evening at the club, 
and I can testify that sometimes after club hours were 
over we used to enjoy prolonging our friendly chat quite 
into the morning hours; but in these latter days Ropes 
became much more chary of his time and subjected him- 
self to a kind of discipline in order that his work might 
be finished. 

In another direction and in dealing with a more lim- 
ited theme, he achieved a finished piece of work. He 
had always entertained a warm admiration for the First 
Napoleon. It was natural that such an acute military 
critic should admire such transcendent military genius. 
But Ropes carried his admiration to an extent with 
which not all his friends found it easy to sympathize. In 
his little book entitled "The First Napoleon" Ropes 
appears as the great Corsican's advocate, and his case is 
presented with consummate skill. It has all the more 
weight because the author is far too skilful to weaken 
his case by over statement or by any too conspicuous 
warmth of enthusiasm. It is a masterly piece of writing, 
although in its philosophic grasp of the man and the 

[70] 



JOHN CODMAN K01»ES 

period it is surely far inferior to the book published 
about the same time by the late Sir John Seeley. 

It was in relation to the Waterloo Campaign that 
Ropes produced the completely finished work already 
alluded to. No battle of the nineteenth century has 
called for so nnich discussion as AVaterloo; and most of 
the discussion has centred about the question, -Why 
did Napoleon lose the battle?" The books on this sub- 
ject are legion, and they present us with an English 
view of the situation and a Prussian view, and ever so 
many French views, according to the political and per- 
sonal predilections of the writers. Usually we find some 
particular antecedent selected as explaining the mighty 
result, while other antecedents receive inadequate atten- 
tion or are passed over. One writer is impressed with the 
inefficiency of Grouchy, another one traces the catas- 
trophe to the aimless wanderings of Erlon's corps on the 
sixteenth of June, and so on. But in Ropes's monograph 
what cliiefly impresses us is the fact that he weighs every 
circumstance with the greatest care and puts real men- 
tal effort into the work of estimating the precise share 
which each circumstance took in the general mass of 
causation. In the first place the quality of the French 
army is duly considered and compared with the quality 
of the allied forces. Then such facts as the Emperor 
having Soult for Chief of Staff", an unaccustomed posi- 
tion for that able marshal, his feeling it necessary to 
leave at Paris the invincible Davoust, and other like 
circumstances, receive due attention. The mysterious 
movements of Erlon, which prevented his being of any 
use either to Ney at Quatre Eras or to Napoleon at 
Ligny, are more acutely analyzed than in any other 
book. Then the consequences of the very incomplete de- 

[ 71 ] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

feat of Bliicher on the sixteenth are carefully considered. 
Then Napoleon's great and uiuisual blunder in assum- 
ing an eastward retreat for the Prussians and acting 
upon the assumption without verifying it, is properly 
characterized. The share wrought by the muddy roads 
and the rains is not forgotten, nor the physical weak- 
nesses which hampered the great general and allowed 
him now and then to be caught napping for a moment; 
the masterly position taken by Wellington; the effects 
of the topography; the extent to which the Emperor's 
attention was diverted early in the afternoon in the di- 
rection of Planchenoit, — not one of these points is foi*- 
gotten or slurred over. It is this minute quantitative 
consideration of details that impresses upon Ropes's his- 
torical writings their truly scientific character, and no 
theme could have been better calculated to exhibit it in 
its perfection than the campaign of Waterloo. One can- 
not read the book carefully without feeling that for once 
in the world something has been done so exhaustively 
that it will not need to be done again. It would seem al- 
most impossible for the most fertile mind to offer a sug- 
gestion of anything actual, probable, or possible about 
Waterloo that our author has not already brought for- 
ward and considered. Those who write such books are 
few, and to study them is a great and profitable stimulus. 
As this monograph on Waterloo related to a subject al- 
ready well understood in Europe, it immediately gave 
Ropes a high reputation in European circles, and I be- 
lieve he is regarded by experts as one of the soundest 
miUtary critics since the days of Jomini. 



[72] 



A MEMORIAL SKETCH 
BY A. J. C. SOWDON 



[Ke/iiiuleil from " Time and the Hour," Boxton, Noveviber 4, 1899] 



A MEMORIAL SKETCH 

BY A. J. C. SOWDON 

A LIFE of singular strength and beauty has 
passed from mortal vision. The great company 
of friends and mourners which filled Trinity 
Church last Monday testified to the respect and affection 
in which John Codman Ropes was held in this commu- 
nity. He was only a private citizen, holding no official 
position; had no political influence; belonged to no pop- 
ular or secret societies; and never had descended to any 
ignoble arts which attract popular interest and approval. 
During these many years he has gone in and out among 
us, simply doing the duties and living the life of a good 
citizen, as he understood them. But all the while he was 
making friends who loved him as few men are loved, and 
it has been said that his death has occasioned a public 
sorrow unknown since the death of his friend Phillips 
Brooks. 

William Ropes, the father, was a man of very strong 
character, and one of the best types of old-time mer- 
chants and ship-owners. He had large dealings with 
London and St. Petersburg, and his mind and range of 
ideas had widened accordingly. The mother, a daughter 
of Hon. John Codman and a sister of Rev. Dr. Codman 
of Dorchester, was a woman of strong convictions, much 
piety, and a gentle, motherly nature. Together they pre- 
sided over a home of sweetness and refinement, precisely 
the kind of home for the upbuilding of character. 

In the year 18.58 John and his brother Francis en- 
tered Harvard College. John was the more intellectual 
and the more popular of the two, although in subse- 

[ 75 ] 



JOHN CODMAN KOPES 

quent years Francis attained distinction as a physician. 
John was even as a PVeshman a remarkable youth, pure 
in morals and speech, bright, intelligent, well-read, very 
thoughtful and conscientious, and wise beyond his years. 
Even in those early years he was well versed m Napo- 
leonic lore, while his knowledge of general history was 
large, exact, and well digested. At graduation he took 
high rank, and was probably the most popular man in 
the class of 18.57. 

Among his first acts after graduating was to found a 
Dinner Club among his classmates. This club has flour- 
ished greatly, even to the present time, but its ranks are 
sadly thinned. Partly with a sense of humor, it was 
named for him, and called the Jacobite Club. Its dinners 
have been held monthly, except in summer, and among 
those who once added a charm to its meetings were the 
late Robert Dickson Smith, James J. Storrow, Stanton 
Blake, Charles F. Walcott, .James Amory Perkins, 
Howard Dwight, Ezra Dyer, George McKean Folsom, 
and George M. Barnard. With these meetings Ropes 
never allowed any engagement to interfere in the forty- 
two years of its existence. 

John Ropes came naturally by his love of military 
history. It began in college, but it received a mighty 
stimulant in the opening and progress of the Civil War, 
and the departure of so many of his friends for the army. 
Who of those young Harvard soldiers did he not know ? 
And with many he kept up a lively correspondence dur- 
ing the entire war. His youngest brother, Henry (Har- 
vard, 1862), was killed at Gettysburg, and this great af- 
fliction to him seemed only to increase his hunger for 
military fjicts and study. More and more he withdrew 
from societv, of which he was verv fond, and took up 

[ 76 ] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

those serious studies which became his hfe's work. His 
subsequent magazine articles and histories upon Napo- 
leon, Waterloo, our Civil War, and kindred topics have 
given him a wide reputation as a historian and mihtary 
critic, and rendered him exceedingly popular with both 
soldiers and scholars. He was the founder of the Mili- 
tary Historical Society of this State, and enjoyed the 
distinction of being one of the very few civilian mem- 
bers of the Commandery of the Loyal Legion. His ac- 
quaintance among public men was very large, especially 
military men, and many a battle of the Civil War has 
been fought over again at his dinner-table. His full and 
exact knowledge has sometimes enabled him to instruct 
officers about the battles they had engaged in, even as 
to their own positions on the field of action. 

But how shall we speak of the rare charm of this man's 
personality, which was so unique in our community ? He 
was so intelligent, so sensible, so broad-minded, so en- 
thusiastic! He had for years a reputation as a talker, a 
conversationalist, and nobody could listen to him with- 
out being captivated. He was intensely vigorous and 
manly. He was singularly courteous, and never unfairly 
stated the position of his adversary, even in the heat of 
high debate. Those who were privileged to share liis 
friendship can recall nothing finer than hours passed at 
his liospitable board or around the fire in his library. 
These were indeed noctes ainbrosiancc, and never to be 
forgotten. His insight into character and his ability to 
analyze it were very dehghtful, while his wit and his 
love of good stories charmed his friends. He was a per- 
fectly sane and wholesome man, with no fads and with 
no patience for cranks or well-meaning fools. He could 
not endure bores. His plain speaking was refreshing, his 

[ 77 ] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

righteous indignation was something to remember, and 
no one ever left his presence without feeUng that he had 
been in the company of a strong man. 

Mr. Ropes seemed to win the esteem of all who met 
him. To his nearest friends he was tender and generous, 
for his nature was lovable and his heart pure and warm. 
With no show of ever giving, and rather a dislike of 
public philanthropists, he was one of the constant givers 
in this city, and hundreds could testify to his generous 
and unobtrusive benefactions. In early life he came out 
of Congregationalism into what he grew to regard as 
the fresher and sunnier atmosphere of the Episcopal 
church, and became the close friend and trusted adviser 
of Bishops Brooks and I.,awrence and of his own rec- 
tor. Dr. Donald. Many of his most intimate friends were 
among the clergy, whose society he greatly enjoyed, and 
were confined to no denomination. He deplored secta- 
rian divisions, and yet he dearly loved theological in- 
(juiry. In his early youth he took the Harvard (Graduate 
prize for the best essay upon Mansel's "I^imits of Reli- 
gious Thought." His religious life was deep and earnest. 
His conversations upon sacred themes showed profoimd 
reverence and a critical and lifelong study. He seemed 
familiar with every phase of religious thought and mod- 
ern theological research; he searched for the truth and 
did not fear to face it wheresoever he foimd it. His 
knowledge of the Bible was not less remarkable than 
the simplicity, beauty, and strength of his faith. To listen 
to him was indeed a spiritual uplift. 

He knew no fear. He led the first Republican revolt 
in Massachusetts in 1876 as head of the Bristow Club, 
and was the first president of the first Civil-Service Re- 
form Club in this State. He deprecated the present con- 

[ 78 J 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

dition of political parties, and always asserted his right 
to vote as he chose. 

In this brief tribute many things are left for others 
to speak of. In his profession as a lawyer he took high 
rank, and was the prudent and trusted counsellor. As a 
neighbor and a familiar figure in our streets men grew 
to know him and respect him. Little did they know 
how this busy man loved children and young people 
and gathered them about him and entertained them; 
and how he advised and helped young men to a higher 
living. In his heart he was as young as any of them, and 
he found great happiness in their company. 

This beautiful and helpful life is ended, and oli, the 
difference it will make to so many in the community! 
The final summons, which came to him alone, suddenly, 
at the midnight hour, doubtless found him ready. Death 
never finds such a man unprepared. 

"£V?i as he trod that day to God, 
So walked he from hits birth. 
In simjdene.ss and gentleness, 
A ltd honor and clean mirth.'''' 



[79] 



RESOLUTIONS 

OF THE BAR ASSOCIATION OF THE 

CITY OF BOSTON 



RESOLUTIONS 

OF THE BAR ASSOCIATION OF THE 
CITY OF BOSTON 

WHEREAS by the death of John Codman 
Ropes on October "28, 1891), we lost one of 
our most widely known and best beloved 
members, we place on record this brief memorial of his 
professional work. 

Mr. Ropes was a man of such varied talents and felt 
so strong an interest in matters outside of law, and de- 
voted himself with such untiring industry to everything 
he undertook, that he became a conspicuous literary and 
social leader, and there is, perhaps, danger that our suc- 
cessors, and even his contemporaries, may, for that rea- 
son, fail to appreciate what he did and was in the strict 
line of his profession. It is for this Association to see 
that the work to which he gave the best of his time 
and thought is faithfully recorded. 

He was born April 28, 1836, in St. Petersburg, where 
the house of William Ropes and Company had recently 
been founded by his father, who belonged to an old 
Salem family. 

When he Was five years old his family returned to 
Boston. He was educated here and in 1857 was gradu- 
ated from Harvard College. He studied law at the Har- 
vard Ijaw School and afterwards in the office of Chand- 
ler and Shattuck. 

After his admission to the bar he occupied for a few 
years an office with Robert M. Morse. 

At the close of the Civil War he and his friend John 
C. Gray formed the firm of Ropes and Gray. In 1878 

[ 83 ] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

William Caleb Loring, now Mr. Justice Loring, became 
a member of this firm, and the name was changed to 
Ropes, Gray and Loring. 

For several years after 1866, Mr. Ropes was Assistant 
United States District Attorney for the district of Mas- 
sachusetts, and he was afterwards offered the position of 
Assistant United States Attorney General by his friend 
Mr. Devens, but this he declined. 

While in the district attorney's office, he was actively 
engaged in the trial of the civil cases in which the gov- 
ernment was interested, and this part of the work fell 
chiefly to him. 

In connection with Mr. Gray he founded the Ameri- 
can Law Review, which they carried on until its reputa- 
tion was established and its success assured. 

When he left the district attorney's office he was al- 
ready much sought after as a trustee and a manager of 
property, but he continued for many years to keep up 
his general practice, and only withdrew from the trial 
of cases as the pressure of other business forced him so 
to do. 

He keenly enjoyed the struggle of a well-contested 
lawsuit, and on several occasions continued the battle 
with wonderful courage and persistency after it seemed 
hopeless to others. His unflagging industry and zeal 
were lavished on the preparation of his briefs and argu- 
ments, and they displayed a rare power of understanding 
confused and complicated facts and ideas and giving 
them an orderly, simple, and intelligible form. 

He was prompt in deciding and acting, and in the 
management of the large interests intrusted to him he 
showed great practical common sense and very sound 
judgment. His great kindness of heart endeared him to 

[84] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

liis clients and led him to give the same attention to the 
small matters brought to him by the widow and the or- 
phan as to large affairs of business. 

He was the friend and adviser of hundreds. He took 
a personal interest in all their problems, and no one did 
more of that important work of the lawyer whereby by 
judicious advice and timely action costly litigation is 
prevented. 

No trait of his character was more striking than his 
love for young men, and this is especially noticeable 
in his relations with the younger lawyers. For many 
years he liad always one or more students in his office, 
and his treatment of them was invariably considerate and 
his intercourse most helpful. One and all they became 
his warm personal friends. At the time of his death no 
man at the bar was more generally beloved than he. 

He was very public spirited, but the numerous bodies, 
religious, literary, and social, to which he gave so much 
of his time, have severally borne their testimony to his 
work, and it is not necessary to speak of them here. But 
we cannot omit a reference to his services as a member 
of the council and of the committee of grievances of this 
Association during its early years. 

It was most important that the first efforts of this As- 
sociation to purify and keep up the standard of the bar 
should be judicious and successful. He did his full share 
of this trying work, and to its success his good judgment 
and courage greatly contributed. 

Soi-OMON Lincoln. 

J. L. Stackpoi.e. 

Charles P. Gueenough. 

WiLLLVM Ij. Putnam. 

Robert S. Gokham. 
[8.5 1 



ADDRESS 

BY J. LEWIS STACKPOLE 

MR. PUTNAM'S resolutions are admirably 
conceived and yet in seconding them I must 
ask a few minutes' indulgence to add a word 
or two of my own. 

.lohn Ropes was a classmate of mine and a lifelong 
friend for nearly half a century, and his nature was so 
strong, so vigorous, so full of life, that it seems hard to 
realize that I shall see him no more. 

Early in our college life he developed the maturity 
of thought, the independence, the grasp of every subject 
that interested him, wliich characterized his later years. 
As an editor of the Harvard Magazine he grappled with 
the vital topics of the day, and soon after graduation 
took the resident graduate's prize for an essay on "The 
Limits of Religious Thought," a subject on which, I 
fancy, most of us had but few and superficial ideas. 

So it was with him through all his life. He was a strong, 
bold, independent thinker, an earnest and thorough ad- 
vocate of the side of the question which he espoused. 

These qualities he carried into his practice of the 
profession of the law, and during his term of service in 
courts they made him a valuable counsellor and a suc- 
cessful advocate. He had the eloquence which came 
from a complete confidence in the cause he advocated, 
and his sound good sense led him to reject all argu- 
ments that were not entirely apposite to the cause under 
consideration. 

While law was liis \'ocation, he had not a few avoca- 
tions, the chiefest among them the study and criticism 

[87] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

of military campaigns. It is not too much to say that 
among American miUtary critics he stands to-day facile 
p7'inceps. His knowledge of the campaigns of the Em- 
peror Napoleon — his single hero worship — was pro- 
found and accurate, and his study of the campaign of 
Waterloo has been pronounced by competent judges, 
both Enghsh and French, to be the best work ever writ- 
ten on that famous battle. His acquaintance with the 
battles of the Civil War, learned from accounts given 
him directly by the most distinguished officers, both of 
the United States army and on the Confederate side, 
embraced the whole of that great conflict. Two volumes 
on this subject he had given to the world. His mind was 
full for writing the rest. 

He was prepared to pass judgment on many vexed 
and long-debated questions, and his work, alas, can no 
more be completed by another than the place of the 
judge who has heard the evidence and arguments in a 
long and complicated case can be filled bv a stranger. 

John Ropes was a most sociable man in the highest 
sense of the term. His friends were numberless, from all 
ranks, from all classes, young and old, rich and poor. 
To be admitted to his friendship was a distinct and 
liappy privilege. 

His talk was always rich and entertaining. He had 
strong, interesting views on every subject he touched, 
and at times I have thought he resembled not a little 
the great lexicographer, — but only in the hitter's most 
genial moments. How many dehghtful nights I can 
look bade upon when, 

'''•Long, long through the hours, and the night ami the chimes. 
We talked of old bookx and old friends a/ul old times," 

for he was no advocate of early bed, and not seldom in 

[88 ] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

that pleasant country house of his at York, with the 
Hues of the famous Latin bard over the portal, the glow 
in the east sent us to bed! 

^'■Dum rediens fu-gat astra Phcebus^ 
as the same poet hath it. 

A single word more. It lias been my privilege to take 
part in two other meetings of this Association, called 
upon the deaths of two other classmates — the geiiial 
and witty Robert Smith, the profound, clear-headed 
James Storrow. Our circle is again broken by the loss 
of our much-loved John Ropes. 

I do no injustice to those who remain — and they are 
unknown neither to the profession nor the country — 
by saying that the arrows of death have struck our 
most shining marks. 

^^ Those J'riends of' mine 

Who are no longer here, the noble three 
Who half mi) life leere more than friends to me 
And whose discourse was like a gemrous wine.'''' 

Life ceases to be quite the same when those who con- 
tributed to make it what it was are gone. And though 
we put on a good face and keep a good courage, one 
that is left behind may be pardoned when he thinks of 
Ropes for again quoting the same great poet: — 

^^ Good- /light, good-night, as zee so oft have said 
Beneath thy roof at midnight, in the days 

That are no more and shall no more return. 

Thou hast taken thy lamp and gone to bed; 
I stay a. little longer, as one stays 

To cover up the embers that still burn.'"'' 



[89] 



RESOLUTIONS 
OF THE TWENTIETH REGIMENT ASSOCIATION 



RESOLUTIONS 
OF THE TWENTIETH REGIMENT ASSOCIATION 

THE members of the Twentieth Regiment As- 
sociation wish to express their grief at the 
death of their associate brother, Mr. John C. 
Ropes, so far as a few inadequate words may do so. 
They know that the loss was felt by the whole city, and 
far beyond its limits to an extraordinary degree, but 
they believe that Mr. Ropess connection with them- 
selves had in it something singular, notwithstanding the 
many and close ties by which he was bound. He was 
the fii'st man whose membership of the Association was 
not based upon service in the field, yet he seemed quite 
as much a member as the veterans of the great war. 
^ Only obstacles which no will or courage could surmoimt 
kept him from our battles, and that he was kept from 
them was the greatest grief of his life. His brother was 
killed in the front of the regiment at Gettysburg. He 
himself was the intimate of every man of the Twentieth 
who wished the precious gift of a friendship which, with- 
out losing nice discrimination, saw the best side of all 
he met. He knew the story of the regiment as did no 
one else. He set us all an example of cheerful, ever gay 
courage in facing misfortune, of gallantry in making the 
most of facts as they were, instead of sighing for those 
which were not, of high resolve in homely attitude, that 
taught men who in their youth were schooled in war 
to know and to love better the very virtues which it is 
the glory of war to teach. The memory of him, like that 
of Colonel Lee, always will be one of the great lights in 
a constellation that has nearly set: the Twentieth Regi- 

[93] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

ment of Massachusetts Volunteers in the war which he 
was narrating so brilUantly when he died. 



For the Regiment, 

Oliver Wendell Holmes 

GUSTAVE MaGNITZKY 

Edward B. Robins 



• Committee. 



January 1, 1900. 



[94] 



RESOLUTIONS 

OF THE MILITARY HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF 

MASSACHUSETTS 



RESOLUTIONS 

OF THE MILITARY HISTORICAL SOCIETY 
OF MASSACHUSE'rrS 

THE JNIilitaiy Historical Society of Massachu- 
setts desire to place on record the love which 
its members one and all felt for their friend, 
the founder of this Society, the late John Codman 
Hopes, their deep sense of gratitude for his constant in- 
terest and benefactions, and their sorrow for his loss. 

Nearly one quarter of a century has passed since Mr. 
Ropes founded this Society, lentil less than five years 
ago all its meetings were held in his house, and its mem- 
bers entertained by him with generous hospitality. 

Upon its establishment in its })resent quarters Mr. 
Ropes presented it with his valuable library on the Civil 
War, numbering about five hundred volumes, his 
unique collection of works on the Emperor Napoleon, 
nearly four hundred volumes in all, many works on gen- 
eral military subjects, about one thousand prints, over 
one hundred and fifty medals, besides many beautiful 
bronzes and portraits. In addition to these gifts the 
amount of money contributed by Mr. Ropes to the So- 
ciety, besides ordinary fees and dues, exceeds the total 
amount of dues and contributions paid by all the other 
members during all these twenty-five years, and is over 
twelve thousand five hundred dollars. IJut these material 
contributions, great as they are, are far from represent- 
ing all for which this Society owes to Mr. Ropes its en- 
during gratitude. From the earliest beginning down to 
the day of his death his interest never flagged. The 
friendship of manv distinguished soldiers, both of the 

[97] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

United States Army and upon the Confederate side, 
procured the most interesting essays upon tlie principal 
events of the Civil War, while his intimate knowledge 
of the subject admirably directed the investigations of 
other writers. Last, but not least, by his wise advice, his 
cordial encouragement, and his never ending hospitality, 
he promoted in a thousand ways our prosperity ; and it 
is not too much to say that whatever success the Mili- 
tary Historical Society has earned is due to the wisdom, 
the devotion, and the perseverance of John Codman 
Ropes. Nor is it unfitting in this place to resolve, that if 
our gratitude is to be other than hollow, it will be best 
shown by continuing the work which he has so gener- 
ously entrusted to us, so that it may remain a permanent 
monument to his memory. 

Mr. Ropes showed us the way to the research of mili- 
tary history, and conferred lustre upon the Society by 
his works upon military subjects. Besides the many pa- 
pers read by him, and numerous articles contributed to 
reviews, his work on the "Army under Pope" in the 
"Campaigns of the Civil War," that on "The First Na- 
poleon," his exhaustive study entitled "The Campaign 
of Waterloo," and his unfinished "Story of the Civil 
War" are justly regarded as standard works of the high- 
est authority. Those of us who served in the War of 
the Rebellion well know that, but for a physical infir- 
mity, he would have been among us, and that his con- 
stant and diligent inquiry into the true history of that 
period had its source in a patriotism as pure and de- 
voted as inspired those who had an actual share in the 
events which his pen has so well described. 

Above and beyond all it is our privilege to hold in 
our memories a friend, upon whose kind heart we could 

[ 98] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

always rely, whose cordial smile lit up our meetings, 
whose wise advice was ever at our service, and whose 
benefactions conferred happiness upon many unnum- 
bered and unknown. The young especially found in 
him a steadfast friend and wise adviser. Imbued with 
deep religious feeling he was unhampered by pi'eju- 
dice or intolerance. The memory of him must always 
be with us as of an able, upright, pure man, — individual 
in his character, strong in his convictions, but with a 
liberality that tempered his judgment, and a tenderness 
that embraced all that was luunan. 

He had lived his life. The respect of the community 
was his. The love of friends followed him. Well pre- 
pared for death, he doubtless had wished that he might 
be spared to finish that work, to which he had given so 
many hours, — so much thought, that "magnum opus" 
long postponed in order to have the last word of judg- 
ment on so many vexed questions, and therefore so im- 
possible of completion except by the author himself 
But it was otherwise ordained. On the day preceding 
the night attack of fatal illness he had worked hard and 
long on the pages of this book, nor knew how soon it 
might be said 

'■'•the hand lies cold 
Which at its topmost speed let Jail the pen, 
And left the tale half told. 

Ah! wJio shall lift that zvaml of magic poxeer. 

And the lost cleio irgain? 
The unjinished icindoio in Aladdins tower 

Unfinished must remain!'''' 

November 7, 1899. 

[ 99] 



LofC. 



RESOLUTIONS 
OF 

THE COMMANDERY OF THE STATE OF MASSACHUSETTS 

MILITARY ORDER OF THE LOYAL LEGION 

OF THE UNITED STATES 



RESOLUTIONS 

OF THE MILITARY ORDER OF THE LOYAL LEGION 
OF THE UNITED STATES 

JOHN CoDJiAN Ropes, a gentleman who in civil 
life during the Rebellion was specially distin- 
guished for conspicuous and consistent loyalty. 
Earnest in loyal influence and in assistance to troops 
in the field ; an exceptionally diligent student and able 
writer on the history of the war. 

This Commandery has lost many distinguished com- 
panions whose lives were most valuable to our country, 
and were full of honors which shed a lustre upon our 
association, but none more full of the martial spirit 
than the hfe of John Codman Ropes. 

Prevented by physical disability from taking active 
service in the field with the other young men who were 
his companions and friends, he bore his disappointment 
with manly courage and extraordinary cheerfulness. His 
interest in the Civil War was intensified by the loss of 
his brother, who was an officer in the Twentieth Massa- 
chusetts Infentry and was killed at Gettysburg; and his 
natin-al love of study and investigation led his mind, 
trained by his legal education and practice, in the di- 
rection of military science. Refusing most of the social 
opportunities which surrounded him, he devoted every 
moment of his time which could be spared from his 
profession, in which he was eminently successful, to 
hard work in the study of military movements and es- 
timates of the success or failure of officers and soldiers 
engaged. We have had no military writer who displayed 

[ 103 ] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

more love of his subject or more devotion and intel- 
ligence in developing the movements of an army, the 
capacity of its commanders, and the value of its sol- 
diers. His acquaintance and friendship with many of 
the leaders on both sides of our conflict gave him op- 
portunities for information unexcelled by any military 
writer upon the subject, so that when these studies 
came to be written out, his books were a monument of 
patient and skilful endeavor, and the charm of his com- 
position impressed itself upon every reader. His reputa- 
tion as an able writer and critic upon great military 
events is fully established both at home and abroad. 

His disposition was most kindly, and those of us who 
were honored by his intimacy remember no more loyal 
or affectionate friend. His interest in young men and 
their pursuits was especially marked, and many of our 
young companions will have the recollection of his kind- 
ness and hospitality as one of their choicest remem- 
brances. 

The Commandery of Massachusetts joins its voice in 
tribute and records in tender remembrance that his 
memory will ever rest in all hearts as that of the true 
soldier and honorable high-minded man, who brouglit 
credit and honor to the Order. 



[ 104 ] 



RESOLUTIONS 

OF THE VESTRY OF TRINITY CHURCH 

IN THE CITY OF BOSTON 



RESOLUTIONS 

OF THE VESTRY OF TRINITY CHURCH 
IN THE CITY OF BOSTON 

MR. ROPES was for many years an honored 
and useful member of this V^estry and 
throughout his long service illustrated the 
qualities of character which endear men to their fel- 
lows. He was a man of unstained integrity, of singular 
warmth of heart, of brilliant mind, and of generous im- 
pulses. He therefore won both respect and love. Few 
men have so signally illustrated a genius for friendship, 
none has exercised a wider, saner, or more powerful in- 
fluence over educated young men. His hfe was so full, 
his mind so hospitable to all knowledge, his sympathies 
so wide, that he gathered about him and knit to him in 
abiding bonds of friendship, men of diverse interests 
and occupations. He lived, as few men have ever lived, 
successfully in two worlds: the world of men, affairs, 
pleasure, and work; the world of reverence, faith, and 
communion with God. He was determined to know as 
much about this world as he could; so he became an 
able lawyer, a learned historian, a brilliant, accomplished 
member of society. He was equally determined to know 
as much about God as he could ; so he became a trained 
theologian and a reverent follower of Jesus Christ. He 
loved and served his Church because it made him a 
better man, deepened his trust in Jesus Christ, and 
strengthened his belief in immortality. He intelligently 
prized, regularly and devoutly received, the Sacrament, 
because it brought him consciously into the presence 
of God. 

[ 107 ] 



JOHN CODMAN ROPES 

His was a courageous, industrious, fruitful, and faith- 
ful life. We his associates and friends will long and 
gratefully remember his services to Trinity Church and 
the City of Boston. 



[ 108 ] 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 
OF THE WRITINGS OF JOHN CODMAN ROPES 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

1 

The Limits of Reliffioiis Thought. Bowdoin Prize Dissertation. 
1861. (MS.) 

2 
James Amory Perkijis. In "Harvard Memorial Biographies," vol. i. 
Cambridge, 1866. 

3 
Arg-umentjbr the Continttanee of the Policy of the Commonxvealth (of 
Massachusetts) in Regard to the Eaenijdioii from Taxation of the 
Property of Literary, Benevolent, Charitable, and Scientific Institn- 
tiims, with Especial Refei-ence to the Taxation of Their Bank Shares 
nmler the Act oflSll. (With George Otis Shattuck.) 22 pp. Boston, 
1872. 

4 
The Relation of the Protestant Episcopal Church to Freedom of Re- 
ligious Thought. Address at Third Annual Congress in the Protes- 
tant Episcopal Church in the United States, Boston, November 15, 
1876. In "Authorized Report of the Third Church Congress in the 
United States," pp. 112-118. New York, 1876. 

5 

The Failure to take Petersburg on the 16th, 17th, and 18th Days o/' 
June [1864]. Read before the Military Historical Society of Massa- 
chusetts, February 17, 1879. (MS.) 



/ 



Tlie Extension of the Suffrage to Women. Lecture. 1880. (MS.) 

7 
Genercd McClellans Plans for the Campaign of 1862 and the Alleged 
Interference cyf tl\e Government xcith them. Read before the Military 
Historical Society, November 13, 1876. In "The Peninsular Cam- 
paign of General McClellan in 1862. Papers read before the Mili- 
tary Historical Societv of Massachusetts," vol. i., pp. 3-28. Boston, 
1881. Reprinted (revised) in "Papers of the Military Historical 

[111] 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Society of Massachusetts," vol. i., pp. 61-87. Boston and New Yorkj 
1895. ' 

8 

Tujcatiou of Mortgaged Real Estate: heing the substance of re- 
marks before tJie Joint Committee on Tu.vation of tlie Legislature 
of Massachiisetts, on January 17 and January 23, 1881, with addi- 
tions and corrections. 14 pp. Boston, 1881. 

9 
117(0 Lost Waterloo? (VVitli two maps.) In "Atlantic Monthly," 
June, 1881, pp. 785-800. Enlarged from "The Grouchy Contro- 
versy,'" read before the Military Historical Society, October 8, 1877. 

10 

The Army under Pope. ("Campaigns of the Civil War," vol. iv.) 
xii + 229 pp., with eight maps. New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 
1881. 

11 

■ Napoleon the First. Lecture. 1882. (MS.) 

12 

TJie Battle of Cold Harbor. Read before the Military Historical 
Society, February 12, 1883. (MS.) 

13 
General Beauregard. (Review of "The Military Operations of Gen- 
eral Beauregard in the War between the States, 1861-1865," by Al- 
fred Roman. New York, 1884.) In "Atlantic Monthly," April, 1884, 
pp. 551-560. Reprinted in "Papers of the Military Historical So- 
ciety of Massachusetts," vol. x., pp. 3-20. Boston and New York, 
1895. 

14 

General Grant's Campaign in Virginia in 186^. Read before , the 
Military Historical Society, May 19, 1884. (MS.) 

15 

The Fir.H Napoleon: A Sketch, Political and Military. xx-|-347 pp., 
with nine maps. Boston, Houghton, MifHin & Co., 1885. Twelfth 
edition, corrected, with one portrait, 1895. (Lowell Lectures, de- 
livered in March, 1885.) 

[ 112 j 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

16 

The Campai£^n of General Pope in Virginia: Its Object and (knend 
Plan. Second Part: To the '28th ofAtiffmt, 1H62, and Third Part: 
To tJie End of the Campaig-n. Read before the Military Historical 
Soeietv, February 12 and March 12, 1877. In "The Virginia Cam- 
paign of General Pope in 1862. I'apers read before the Military 
Historical Society of Massachusetts," vol. ii., pp. 57-70 and 73-97. 
Boston, 1886. Reprinted with added notes in "Papers of the Mili- 
tary Historical Society of Massachusetts," vol. ii., pp. 57-70 and 
73-97. Boston and nJw York, 1895. 

17 

The Hearing in the Case of Fitz-John Porter. Read before the Mili- 
tarv Historical Society, January 12, 1880. In "The Virginia Cam- 
paign of General Pope in 1862. Papers," etc., vol. ii., pp. 351-38-5. 
Boston, 1886. Reprinted (with added notes) in "Papers of the Mili- 
tary Historical Society of Massachusetts," vol. ii., pp. 351-385. 
1895. 

18 

Note to article by Colonel \^^illialn Allan on "Strength of the Forces 
under Pope and Lee, in August, 1862," in "The Virginia Campaign 
of General Pope in 1862. Papers," etc., vol. ii., pp. 217-219. Bos- 
ton, 1886. Reprinted in "Papers of the Military Historical Society 
of Massachusetts," vol. ii., pp. 217-219. 1895. " 

19 

Geiieral J. E. B. Stuart. (Review of "The Life and Campaigns of 
Major-General J. E. B. Stuart," by H. B. McClellan. Boston and 
New York; Richmond, Va., 1885.) In "Atlantic Monthly," March, 
1886, pp. 415-419. Reprinted in "Papers of the Military Historical 
Society of Massachusetts," vol. x., pp. 155-162. 1895. 

20 

The Likenesses qfJidius Ccrsar. (With eighteen plates.) In "Scrib- 
ner's Magazine," February, 1887, pp. 131-142. 

21 

A Few Words about Secession. In "Harvard Monthly," May, 1887, 
pp. 85-95. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Some Illustrations of Napoleon and his Times. (Witli nineteen 
plates.) In "Scribner's Magazine," June, 1887, pp. 643-660. 

23 
General McClellan. (Review of "McClelkn's Own Story; The War 
for the Union," by George B. McClellan. New York, 1887.) In "At- 
lantic Monthly," April, 1887, pp. 54.6-559. Reprinted in "Papers 
of the Military Historical Society of Massachusetts," vol. x., pp. 
99-124. 1895. 

24 

The Slavery Question before the War. 1888, rewritten 1890. (MS.) 

25 

The Campaign of Waterloo. (With thirty-nine plates and two 
maps.) In "Scribner\s Magazine," March and April, 1888, pp. 259- 

276, 387-407. 

26 

Kemarks. In "The Double Taxation of Mortgaged Real Estate. 
Argmnent before the Joint Committee on Taxation by Nathan 
Matthews, Jr." 1889. 

27 

'' The Campaign and Battle of Gettysburg. Lecture. 1890. (MS.) 

28 
The Law of Moral Progress. 1890. (MS.) 

29 

The War as We See it Now. In "Scribner's Magazine," June, 1891, 
pp. 776-788. Reprinted in "Papers of the Military Historical So- 
ciety of Massachusetts," vol. x., pp. 247-272. 1895. 

30 

. General Sherman. In "Atlantic Monthly," August, 1891, pp. 191- 
204. Reprinted in "Papers of the Military Historical Society of 
Massachusetts," vol. x., pp. 127-152. 1895. 

31 
Memoir of F. W. Palfrey. In " Proceedings of the Massachusetts 
Historical Society," 1891, pp. 39-44. 

[ ll-t ] 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Memoir of' Charles Deveii.s, LL.D. In "Pi-oceedings of the jVIassa- 
chusetts Historical Society," 1891, pp. 104-117. Reprinted in "Ora- 
tions and Addresses," by Cliarles Devens, pp. 1-25. Boston, 1891. 

;3!} 
The Campaign of Waterloo: A MiUtari) Hi.storij. xiii-fl'Ol pj). 
New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1892. 

34 

An Atlas of the Campaiffii of Waterloo. Desig'ned to Aceompany the 
Aitthor\s '■^ Campaign of Waterloo — A Military History.'''' Fourteen 
maps. New York, Charles Scribnei-'s Sons, 1893. 

35 

Introduction to "The Army of Northern Virginia in 1862," by 
William Allan, pp. v-viii. Boston and New York, 1892. 

m 

Will'iam Raymond Lee. In "Proceedings of the American Academy 
of Arts and Sciences," vol. xxviii., 1892-93, pp. 346-348. Bostoii, 
1893. 

37 

The Story of the Civil War. A Concise Account of the War in the 
Cn'ited States of America beturcn 1861 and 1865. Part I. Narrat'ive 
of Events to the Opening- of the Campaigvis ()f 1862. xiv4-274 pp., 
with maps and plans. New York, G. P. Putnanrs Sons, 1894. 

38 
The Venezuela Question. A Plea for Freedom of Op'inion. In "Bach- 
elor of Arts," May, 1896, pp. 725-753. 

39 

The Story of the Civil War. A Concise Account erf the War in the 
United States of America between 1861 and 1865. Part II. The 
Cuinpa'ig-ns of 1862. xii-|-475 pp., with maps and plans. New Yoi-k, 
G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1898. 

THE END 



Five hundred copies of this book were printed by D. B. Updike, at 
The Merrymount Press, Boston, in April, 1901. 



NOV 9 



1903 



